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€l)e ISibemDe literature ^eneis 

With Introductions, N'otes, Historical Shetc/ies, and Biof/raphical Sketches 
J-Jach regular single number, paper, 15 ctnts. 

1. Longfellow's Evangeline.* if 

2. Longfellow's Courtstiip of Miles Standish ; Elizabeth.-'^- 

3. Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish. Dramatized. 

4. Whittier's Saow-Boand, and Other Poems.* Xt **' 

5. Whittier's Mabel Martin, and Other Poems.** 

(.). Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, etc** 
7, 8, 0. Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair ; True Stories from Nev 
England History. lG'JU-lW)o. In three parts. t4 

10. Hawthorne's Biographical Storiss. With Questions.** 

11. Longfellow's Children's Hour, and Other Selections.** 

12. Studies in Longfellow, Wlxittier, Holmes, and Lowell. ()utliiie 

and Topics for Study. 
l'.\ 14. Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. lu two parts.; 
If). Lowell's Under the Old Elm, and Other Poems.** 
1(). Bayard Taylor's Lars : a Pastoral of Norway ; and Other Poems. 
17, 18. Hawthorne's Wonder -Book. In t.MO parts. i 
19, 20. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. In two parts. { 

21. Benjamin JTranklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, etc. 

22, 2;{. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. lu two parts, ± 

24. Washington's Rules of Conduct, Letters and Addresses.* 

25, 2f). Longfellow's Golden Legend. In two parts. t 

27. Thoreau's Succession of Forest Trees, Wild Apples, and Sounds 

With a Bitigraphieal Sketcli by R. W. Emeksox. 
2S. John Burroughs's Birds and Bees.** 

29. Hiiwbhorne's Little Daffydowndilly, and Other Stories.** 
[iO. Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, and Other Pieces.* JJ *"* 

31. Holmes's My Hunt after the Captain, and Other Papers.** 

32. Abraham Lincoln's Getty.sburg Speech, and Other Papers 

33. 34, 3."). Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. In tluee parts. tf 
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37. Charles Dudley Warner's A-Hunting of the Deer, etc.* 

38. Longfellow's Building of the Ship, and Other Poenois. 

39. Lowell's Books and Libraries, and Other Papers.** 

40. Hawthorne's Tales of the White Hills, and Sketches.** 

41. Whittier's Tent on the Beach, and Associated Poems. 

42. Emerson's Fortune of the Republic, and Other Essays, includh 

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43. IJiysses among the Phaeacians. From W. C. Bkyant's Traiislat:'- 

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44. Edgeworth's Waste Not, Want Not ; and The Barring Out. 
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40. Old Testament Stories in Scripture Language. 

47, 48. Fables and Polk Stories. In two parts- 1 

49, 50. Hans Andersen's Stories. In two parts.f 

51, 52. Washington Irving : Essays from the Sketch Book. [51.] R 

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53. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Edited by W. J. Rolfe. With copio 

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54. Bryant's Sella, Thanatopsis, and Other Poems.* 

55. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Thukber.* ** 

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and Jefferson. 

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%\t ^titjersiDe ilitcrature Series; 

STUDIES IN 

LONGFELLOW, WHITTIER, HOLMES 

AND LOWELL 

OUTLINES AND TOPICS FOR STUDY 



J 



'\a 



WITH QUESTIONS AND 
REFERENCES 




^im 'JA mti Tm 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 11 East Seventeenth Street 
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenne 

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Copyright, 1898, 

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Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 



Some years ago there appeared in the Riverside 
Literature Series " Studies in Longfellow : Outlines for 
Schools, Conversation Classes, and Home Studies," by 
W. C. Gannett. The book has had a steady sale, and 
tias met with such favor as to suggest a like treatment 
3f other New England poets. We now present, there- 
fore, Mr. Gannett's book, enlarged by the addition of 
similar but less extended studies of Whittier, Holmes, 
ind Lowell. 

Outlines of this kind, especially any so brief as the 
later ones, are designed to be suggestive rather than 
exhaustive, and the good teacher will supplement them 
in ways of his own. 

They will have served their purpose if they shall 
lighten somewhat the teacher's labor, and shall help to 
stimulate in the pupils a genuine love of our great poets 
ind a thorough study of their works. 

In the '' Studies in Longfellow " page-references are 
^iven to the Household Edition of Longfellow's Poems 
and of " Christus," ^ also to " Hyperion." In the new 

1 The volume entitled Christus contains the Divine Tragedy, 
the Golden Legend, and the two Neiv England Tragedies, all of 
which are included in the Cambridge Edition. References to 
these dramas are made by their initials. 



iv PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 

part of the book no page-references are made, as they 
seem hardly necessary with good indexes. 

The Cambridge Edition ^ of the poets excels all 
others for general use and study, the works of the sev- 
eral poets being given in convenient single volumes, 
containing notes of much interest, also biographical 
sketches of the authors and chronological lists of their 
poems. The Household Edition is the next best single 
volume edition, and the Riverside Edition presents the 
complete poetical and prose works of each author in 
several volumes. 

^ Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, 
and Lowell. Cambridge Edition. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
$2.00 each.) 



BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL WORKS ON 
LONGFELLOW. 



Longfellow, Samuel. 

Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 2 vols. 

This work, written after the poet's death, by his brother, 
is the standard biography. 
Austin, George Lowell. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: His Life, His Works, 
His Friendships. 
Until the appearance of Samuel Longfellow's work, 
this was the most complete life. 
Kennedy, William Sloane. 

Henry W. Longfellow ; Biography, Anecdotes, Letters, 
Criticism. 
This is a serviceable book, and is the one which is con- 
stantly referred to in the " Studies " as " Life." 
Underwood, Francis Henry. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; a Biographical Sketch. 
This is what its name declares, a sketch, and not an 
extended biography. 
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. 
Poets of America. 

A book of valuable and helpful criticism. 
Stoddard, Richard Henry. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In Homes and Haunts of 
Our Elder Poets. ^ 
An illustrated work. 

1 This book is now out of print, but can, of course, be found 
in libraries. 



vi WORKS ON LONGFELLOW. 

Fields, Annie. 

Authors and Friends. 

Mrs. Fields, whose husband was for many years Long- 
fellow's publisher and close friend, draws upon stores 
of material which have not been used by his bio- 
graphers, and gives a charming picture in which the 
friend is no less prominent than the author. 



CONTENTS 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

The Man, his Plome, and his Friends .... 9 

Evangeline .......•• 1< 

Hiawatha ......... 20 

The Puritans. Longfellow as Poet of American History 22 

Mediaeval Legends 26 

Seaside and Fireside 30 

God . 33 

Man 35 

Bi'otherhood ........ 39 

The Poet. His Inspiration and his Ministry . . .41 

John Gbeenleaf Whittier. 

Biographical and Critical Works 47 

Poems on Whittier 49 

Noteworthy Facts and Events in Whittier's Life . . 49 
Poems of Autobiographical Interest . . . .51 

New England Scenery ....... 52 

New England Life, Legend, and History . . .53 

Snow-Bound ........ 55 

Personal Poems ........ 56 

Poems for Occasions ....... 57 

Anti-Slavery Poems 58 

Religious Poems 60 

Whittier's Prose ........ 61 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Biographical and Critical Works 63 

Poems on Holmes 65 



viii CONTENTS. 

Noteworthy Facts and Events in Holmes's Life . . 65 

Autobiographical Readings from Holmes ... 66 

Humorous Poems 67 

Personal Poems ........ 68 

Harvard Poems ...... .69 

Poems for Occasions . 70 

Patriotic Poems . . . . . . . .71 

Poems of Religion and Sentiment .... 72 

Holmes's Prose . . . . . • . • .73 

James Russell Lowell. 

Biographical and Critical Works ..... 75 

Poems on Lowell 76 

Noteworthy Facts and Events in Lowell's Life . . 77 
Autobiographical Readings from Lowell . . .78 

Poems of Nature . . . . . . . . 78 

Legends . . 79 

Personal Poems 80 

Patriotic Poems 81 

The Biglow Papers 81 

Poems of Sentiment and Religion 83 

Lowell's Prose . . . . . . . . 83 



STUDIES IN LONGFELLOW. 



* His gracious presence upon earth 
Was as a fire upon a hearth ; 
As pleasant songs, at morning sung, 
The uwrds that dropped from his sweet tongue 
Strengthened otir hearts ; or, heard at night, 
Made all our slumbers sojt and light. 
Where ishef" 

** ffe has moved a little nearer 
To the Master of all music, 
To the Master of all singing I ♦♦ 



THE MAN, HIS HOME, AND HIS FRIENDS. 

(1.) Cambridge. 

*' The doors are all wide open; at the gate 
The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a blaze. 
And seem, to warm the air ; a dreamy haze 
Hangs o'er the Brighton meadows like a fate, 
And on their margin, with sea-tides elate. 
The flooded Charles, as in the happier days, 
Writes the last letter of his name." 

PAGE 

To THE River Charles . . 38 Village Blacksmith 

It is not Always May . , 37 From my Arm-Chair 

^'"^GE 85 In Churchyard at Cami 

Ta»EK Friends, IV., V. . . 364 Herons of Elmwood , 

AlTEKNOON in FEBRUARY . . 87 St. John'S, CAMBRIDGE . 



PAGE 

36 

395 



10 THE HOME. 

Conversation. — Can you find the College anywhere 
in the Poems ? Why, — is there no poetry about that ? 
(See Hyperion, 60.) To see Longfellow as Professor, 
look at Life, 42 ; and hear the Cambridge neighbors talk 
about him, in Life, 156, 243, — and 234. For Village 
Blacksmith, see Life, 192 ; and the story of the Arm- 
Chair in Life, 118, 247. Other glimpses of Charles 
.River in Hyperion, 195-197, 294. Old Cambridge 
charmingly described in Lowell's " Fireside Travels," 
and in Holmes's '' Poet at the Breakfast Table, i>. 11. 
" Elmwood " is Lowell's home, not far from Longfel- 
low's, on the way to Mount Auburn, that " City of the 
Dead " (364), towards which the *' shadows pass " (p. 
87). 

(2.) The Home. 

•* Once,, ah, once within these walls, 
One whom, memory oft recalls, 
The Father of his Country dwelt.''^ 

" Cfrave Alice, and laughing Allegro, 
And Edith with golden hair.'''' 

PAGE PAGE . 

To A Child 82 Haunted Chamber .... 228 

Children 224 Old Clock on Stairs, etc. 

Children's Hour 225 89, 321, 383 

Weariness 228 From my Arm-Chair .... 395 

Castle-Builder 229 Iron Pen 396 

To-morrow 321 My Cathedral 400 

Shadow ........ 367 Moonlight 409 

Footsteps op Angels ... 4 Golden Mile-Stonb .... 220 

Resignation 129 Song 379 

Two Angels 215 

See also "Among his Books," p. 13. 

Conversation. — " The history of innumerable house- 
holds " in so many of these Home poems ! What won- 
der they made their writer a people's poet ! Have you 
seen Read's picture of the three girls ? Why are all 



ffIS FRIENDS. 11 

fathers and mothers, poets, — or aren't they; Home 
and Children as sources of poetry, in old time and new. 
To watch LongfeUow with children, see Life, 122- 
125, 173, 179, 191, 241 ; and then, on 310, read Whit- 
tier's verses called " The Poet and the Children." Foot- 
steps of Angels refers to his young wife, who died but 
four years after their marriage ; and in Two Angels, the 
"friend " was his neighbor, the poet Lowell, whose wife 
died on the night when a child was born to Longfellow. 
A, but not the, clock stands on his staircase-landing ; for 
the clock, see Life, 71 ; the "ship" clock (383) is in his 
study; and listen to the other clocks in Poems, 299 
316, 408. The Iron Pen was given him at a garden- 
party of school-girls, who had come to visit his house. 
The romantic story of the old house has been often told, 
as in Life, 46-54; in "Scribner's Montlily " for Nov., 
1878 ; by G. W. Curtis, in " Homes of American Au- 
thors ; " and in Drake's "Historic Fields and Mansions 
of Middlesex," ch. 13. And now to call on the Poet in 
his home, read Life, 172-180. Let us seat ourselves in 
the study and look about : what poems, besides those 
named, are in any way suggested ? 

(3.) His Friends. 

" The noble three. 
Who half my life were more than friends to me. 
I most of all remember the divtTie 
Something, t/iat shone in them.''* 



PAGE 



PAGE 

Gu^M Of THE Sunshine , . 78 Three Friends (Felton, Acas-' 

Open Window 132 siz, Sumner) ... 354 

Fiftieth BmTHDAV (Agassiz) . 224 Herons of Elmwood (LoweU) 



Noel (Agassiz) 323 

Hawthorne 319 



216, 372 
In Churchyard at T. (Irving) 380 



Charles Sumner 358 Three Silences (Whittier) . . 382 



12 HIS FRIENDS. 

PAGE PAGE 

Wapentake (Tennyson) . . . 385 Meeting 229 

Bayard Taylok 394 Memoeies 414 

Burial of Poet (R. H. Dana) 401 

AuF Wiedersehen (J. T. Fields) 406 Endymion 36 

From the French 412 

Dedication to Seaside and The Love-Poems in Hiawatha, 

Fireside 121 Wayside Inn, Michael An- 

FiRE OF Driftwood .... 129 gelo, etc. 

Preludes and Interludes to Wayside Inn, 232-316. 

The story-tellers around the fireside were, — 

Squire, Lyman Howe ; Student, H. W. Wales ; Sicilian, Luigi Monti ; T?i€0- 
logian, Prof. Treadwell ; Poet, T. W. Parsons ; dfusician, Ole Bull ; Spanish 
Jew, a Boston dealer in Oriental goods, Israel Edrehi- 

Conversation. — Longfellow's lovableness : see Low- 
ell's " Fable for Critics," p. 142, and his " To H. W. 
L. ; " Holmes's " To H. W. Longfellow ; " and tributes of 
other fellow-poets. Crayon portraits of Sumner, Emer- 
son, Hawthorne, Felton, and himself, all as young men, 
hang on his study-walls : trace what those five friends, 
those five young heads, have done to shape American lit- 
erature and life ! For his early praise of Hawthorne, see 
Drift- Wood, 115, — a book-notice, which thenceforth 
bound the two classmates in close intimacy. A poet's 
two circles, — those whom he knows, and those who 
know him. He wrote many poems of friendship, many 
of sympathy, many of love ; but any " love-poems," save 
those in prose (Hyperion, Bk. III., IV.), or else trans- 
lated ? 

For the old "Wayside Inn at Sudlfiry, and Longfel- 
low's poetic lease of it for the imaginary brotherhood, 
see Drake's " Historic Fields and Mansions of Middle- 
sex," ch. 19, and "Harper's Monthly," Sept., 1880; 
also, T. W. Parsons's opening poem in his " Old House 
at Sudbury." There was a real fireside circle there of 
some of these friends, but Ole Bull and the Jew and 
Longfellow himself were not of it. 



AMONG HIS BOOKS. 13 



(4.) Among His Books. 

** The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, 
And all the sweet serenity of books. ^^ 

PAGE PAGE 

DAT IS DON!! .87 Keats 366 

Wind over Chimney .... 320 Robkrt BimNS 397 

Travels by Fireside ... 359 Dante 17, 91, 322, 435 

To Old Danish Sono-Book . 88 Michael Angelo . 368, 392, 415 

Oliver Easseun ..... 217 Hermes Trismegistus . . . 402 

Chaucer 3G5 Translations 

Shakespeare .... 365,409 23,93,135,387-394,412 

Milton 365 My Books 414 

Conversation, — What English poets were living, and 
whart American authors were known, in 1833, when 
Longfellow published his first little book of poetry, — 
the Coplas de Manrique ? Margaret Fuller called his 
early poems largely " exotic." '' Longfellow's mission, 
— the binding back of America to the Old World taste 
and imagination. Our true rise of Poetry may be dated 
from his method of exciting an interest in it," — from a 
light beyond the sea. ... "A good borrower." . . . 
"The world of books was to him the real world. If 
he had been banished from his library, his imagination 
would have been blind and deaf and silent." (E. C. 
Stedman.) Are there any great writers who are not 
" good borrowers " ? Do you believe that that " ban- 
ishment" would have so unmade our Poet ? 

For Longfellow's study-paths, see the Wayside Inn 
" student," p. 233, and the many sources of those Inn 
tales ; also Hyperion, 87, 98, 296, und 37, 160, 247 ; 
also Drift- Wood ; and his " Poets and Poetry of Europe," 
translated from ten different languages. If no more, at 
least look over his translation of Dante, with its wealth 
of Notes and Essays. What two great Old World poems, 



14 HIS TRAVELS. 

besides the Dante, have been translated by American 
poets ? What four other " collections " of poetry have 
been made by our elder poets ? For Longfellow's special 
influence on American literature, and his " binding us 
back" to Germany (as Irving to England?), see Life, 
33, 61, 261 ; Stedman's article in the " Century," Oct., 
1883, p. 926 ; also, his two articles in " Scribner's," 
Aug. and Oct., 1881, on the Rise of Poetry in America. 
The other sense in which an EngUshman wrote of Long- 
fellow, as 

" The bard whose sweet songs, more than aught beside, 
Have bound two worlds together." 

(5.) His Travels. 

** Infancy I can hear again 
The Alpine iorrenfs roar. 
The mule-bells an the hills of Spain, 
The sea at Elsinore. 

" J see the convenVs gleaming ivall 
Rise from its groves of pine, 
And towers of old cathedrals tall. 
And castles by th^ Ehine.''^ 

page page 

Carillon 76 Castles in Spain 373 

Belfry op Bruges .... 77 Travels by the FiREsroE . . 359 

Nuremberg 79 Caijenabbia 359 

Strasburg . . G. L. 7-10, 83-87 Moxte Caseso 360 

Black Forest . . G. L. 109-112 Amalei 361 

Switzerland . . G. L. 150-160 Florence . . 321, 368, 437, 45^-9 

Genoa G. L. 16C-172 Venice 381 

To THE River Rhone . . . 382 Rome 449-456, 460-1 

Conversation. — The best picture among these ? Does 
Art seem to have attracted Longfellow ? Nuremberg, 
a poem to illustrate, verse by verse, with photographs. 
Did the Poet find his own land so lovably picturesque ? 
For ruins he had to take the stone walls of New Eng- 
land! (See 142, 195, 246.) Does not the American 



FROM BOYHOOD TO OLD AGE. 15 

find more poetry than the European, in the historic and 
traditional ? If yes, why ? Books or travel, — which 
educates one the more? For other reminiscences of 
travel, see Outre-Mer (France, Spain, Italy), written af- 
ter his first trip to Europe ; and Hyperion (the Rhine, 
Tyrol, Switzerland) , written after his second ; and the 
Svredish village-scenes in the Notes to Poems, p. 472. 
" A good thing when a romance (Hyperion) has a per- 
manent place among the guide-books." (T. W. Higgin- 
son.) 

(6.) From Boyhood to Old Age. 

" But to act, thai each to-morrow 
Find vs farther than to-day ^ 

*' Not the min that used to be. 

Not the tides thai used to run ! " 



My Lost Youth 

ropewalk 

Kj^ramos (first and last 

stanzas) 

Parker Cleaveland (College) 381 Divtna Commedia (I.-V.) . . 322 

Prelude to Voices of Night . 1 Morituri Salutamus ... 354 

Psalm of Life 2 HAR^'EST Moon 382 

Light of Stars 3 Holidays 385 

Raixy Day 37 Ultima Thule (Dedication) . 394 

Builders 130 Elegiac 398 

Ladder of St. Augustine . 212 Personal Poems .... 413-4 

Something Left Undone . . 227 - 

Weariness 228 His Last Words, Prophecies ! 415, 411 

Changed 229 . 

See also "The Home," p. 10^ above ; and "Tire Poet," p. 41 below. 

Conversation. — Should you call him self-revealing, or 
self-hiding, in his poems ? "A man of deep reserves." 
(C. E. Norton.) '<■ The hospitality (in his poems) that 
invites the whole world home is exquisitely proud and 
shy." (W. D Howeils.) Yet if you knew nothing of 



age 




PAOE 


219 


Aftermath 


. . 231 


220 


Palingenesis .... 


. . 317 




Bridge of Cloud . . . 


. . 318 


368 


Wind over Chimney . 


. . 320 



16 FROM BOYHOOD TO OLD AGE. 

his nature or his literary life, what could you read of 
each in his works ? And what in his face ? (See Life, 
148.) In the poems, what inward struggles or tempta- 
tions do you trace ? " Not man and poet, but a poetical 
man." (O. B. Frothinghara.) ''Beautiful and ample 
as the expression of himself was, it fell far short of the 
truth. The man was more and better than the poet." 
For other hints about his early inner life, see Hyperion, 
Bk. I., ch. 1, 3, 7, 8 ; Bk. II., ch. 10 ; Bk. III. ; Bk. 
IV., ch. 8, 9 ; and the mottoes prefixed to Hyperion 
(378) and Kavanagh. Hyperion is in some degree 
based on fact: "Paul Flemming" is a shadow of the 
Poet himself ; the first chapter refers to his young wife, 
who died when they were abroad ; and " Mary Ashbur- 
ton" is the lady whom he afterwards married. The 
translation of Dante was the work into which he bore 
his second great sorrow, her death ; and in the passion- 
ate series of Dante's sonnets (p. 322), which made his 
preludes to the three parts of the poem, do we not hear 
an exquisite undertone as if from his own experience ? 
(" My burden," " agonies," " she stands before thee," 
" benedictions.") For a word about this sorrow, " ever 
abiding, but veiled," and the still " sweeter manhood " 
born of it, see Life, 56, and LoweU's " To H. W. L.," 
and perhaps PaHngenesis and Bridge of Cloud, 317-8. 
Serenity as a sign of strength : is it always that ? Is it 
mainly the fruit of temperament or of victory ? When 
does one begin to feel the " change " in sun and tide "^ 
Do poets (compare Wordsworth, Holmes, Whittier) feel 
it more and earlier than others ? 

For old Portland, see Life, 19-24. For his first boy- 
poem in print, see Life, 254. Other boy-poems are 
printed in Life, 335-352. These and the " Earlier 



EVANGELINE. 17 

Poems *' as published (Poems, p. 6) are largely about 
Nature, and sound like Bryant. The Prelude to Voices 
of the Night (p. 1) seems to mark a real change and 
deepening of his poetic consciousness, — " The land of 
Song within thee lies," — which gave us a new poet. 
For personal origin of Psalm of Life, see Life, 181. For 
origin of Morituri Salutamus, see Life, 107. Stedman 
calls the poem " a model of its kind ; " C. C. Everett 
says, " Perhaps the grandest hymn to Age ever written." 
Do you like it so well as they ? With Loss and Gain, 
p. 413, compare Whittier's '' My Triumph." Note the 
glad prophecy with which both of his last two poems 
close ! (Pp. 415, 411.) 

Can you catch the echoes of his prose in his verse ? 
e. g., with Prelude, p. 1, compare Hyperion, 78 ; vdth 
Psalm of Life, and Wind over Chimney, compare Hype- 
rion, 84-86 ; and Hyperion, 158, with Michael Angelo, 
p. 467. 

Can you find the lines chosen above as motto for our 
Poet, — " His gracious presence," etc. ? Would you have 
chosen those lines for motto, or four verses on p. 87 ; 
or the passage on pp. 154-5 ; or nine lines on p. 233 ; 
or sixteen on p. 234 ; or six on pp. 380-1 ; or four in 
G. L. 76, or nine in G. L. 183-4 ; or still others ? How 
many of these unconscious self-portraits there are ! 



II. 

EVANGELINE. 
(1.) "In the Acadian Land." and the Exile. 

First Paat (p. 95). 

Conversation. — Which is the prettiest of these vil- 
lage-scenes, — indooi's, and out-of-doors ? Was Acadian 
2 



Id EVANGELINE. 

life really so idyllic, and Puritan life comparatively 
tragic, do you suppose ? If yes, what made the differ- 
ence ? Facts and a poet, — is all the beauty which he 
sees, in the facts ? Was there any possible justification 
for the English atrocity ? 

For the story, see Bancroft's "United States," 1883 
edit, vol. ii., 425-434. For the origin of the poem, see 
Life, 73. For Acadie, see C. D. Warner's " Baddeck." 
The poem is published in a pamphlet, with notes, as 
" Riverside Literature Series," No, 1. (Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. 15 cts.) 

The hexameter in English verse, — why so little used ? 
Where else does Longfellow use it ? Who besides him 
has used it ? May not that canto of " Frithiof 's Saga," 
translated in Drift-Wood, p. 74, have suggested the 
Evangeline hexameters to him ? Does it fit well this 
theme ? '' The tranquil current of these brimming, 
slow-moving, soul-satisfying lines." Its " mournfully 
rolling cadence." See p. 410 ; and what Lowell says 
about it in " Fable for Critics," 142 ; and Stedman's 
article in the " Century," Oct.. 1883, p. 931. 

(2.) Evangeline. 

Second Pabt (p. 107). 
** Wfien she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.'* 
" Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom 
He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him.''' 

Conversation. — Is the poem chiefly a character, a 
story, or a series of beautiful pictures, to you ? Should 
you call it an epic, an idyl, or a tragedy ? Is the maiden 
herself, as a character, strongly outlined ? Does she re- 
call any of Shakespeare's heroines ? Can you see her 
face, — does the poet show it ? Boughton's picture, and 
Faed's, — which do you like best? Darley's illustrar 



EVANGELINE. 19 

tions. Suppose you name the ten parts of the poem ; 
and in each part choose your lines for a picture of Evan- 
geline. Try to analyze the charm of the poem : why its 
universal popularity? (e. g., six German translations, 
three French, tliree Swedish, three Portuguese.) " Evan- 
geline, his master-piece among the longer poems," says 
Dr. Holmes ; and Howells adds, " if not the best poem 
of our age : " say you so ? It is said to have been 
Longfellow's own favorite among his poems. Which lines 
most cling to your memory, and what passages da you 
love best ? Compare with it Goethe's " Hermann and 
Dorothea," and Clough's " Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich," 
— the former perhaps inspiring, the latter inspired by, 
iivangeline. 

(3.) Nature in the Poem and the Poet. 

Conversation. — The finest landscapes in the whole 
poem ? Can you tell which Longfellow had seen, from 
those which he knew by books ? Had he seen ajiy of 
them ? Is " word-painting " chiefly the effect of sight, 
or of imagination? Does he picture Nature vividly? 
Does he give its dccpression or its impression ? Does he 
love Nature for itself, or for what it symbolizes to him ? 
(See Hyperion, 28, 163 ; also Life, 65, 178, 192, 265.) 
What moves him most in Nature, — sky, sea, mountains, 
forests, or fields ? And what aspect does he most feel, 
— its gladness, beauty, peace, or strength ? Are not his 
genre pictures (see also Miles Standish) much finer 
than his landscapes, — and why ? Is it the noblest use 
of landscape in art to treat it as backgTound to human 
figures ? Is Nature apt to intensify, or to change, your 
mood ? (See p. 114, and Kavanagh, ch. 1.) For other 
pictures of the seasons (p. 98) see 5-7, 91, 382 ; Kava- 
nagh,'67, 102, 133, 167 ; and Hvoerion, 91, 195. 



20 HIAWATHA. 

III. 
HIAWATHA. 

" Legends and- tradiiioTis, 
With the odors of (he fores/, 
With (he dew and damp of meadows, 
With the curling smoke of tvigwams, 
With the rushing of great rivers.''^ 

(1.) Sources of the Poem. 

PAGE PAGE 

Introduction 141 Peace-Pipe (I.) 142 

Conversation. — Sketch the Civilizer and Saviour 
myths in various races, — Osiris, Hercules, the Christ, 
etc. For Hiawatha as confounded with the Hero-God 
of Light, — '• the fundamental myth " of many Indian 
tribes, — see Brinton's " American Hero-Myths," or ch. 
6 of his "Myths of the New World." For the Iro- 
quois Hiawatha as the half-historic founder of the Five 
Nations' Confederacy, see Schoolcraft's " Hiawatha Le- 
gends," p. 188 (J. B. Lippincott & Co. r Philadelphia) ; 
or, better, Hale's " Lawgiver of the Stone Age," in 
" Proceedings of Amer. Assoc, for Adv. of Science," vol. 
XXX., 1881. For the little Indian Pipe-Stone Quarry in 
Minnesota, see " American Naturalist," July, 1883. For 
a general survey of Indians and their life, see Bancroft's 
" United States," 1883 edit., vol. ii., 86-136 ; also 
Parkman's " Jesuits in North America," pp. xix.- 
Ixxxix. 

(2.) Hiawatha. 

Childhood (III.) 146 



Father ano Son (IV.) . . 




149 


His Gifts to Men. page 


Minnehaha. 


PAGE 


THE0ORN-FlBLDS(V.,Xm.)151, 170 


Meeting (IV. end) . . 


. . 151 


Sailing (VII.) 156 


Wooing (X.) 


. . 162 


Fishing (VIII.) 157 


Wedding Feast (XI.) . 


. . 164 


Healing (IX., XV.) . . 159,174 


The GHOS're(XIX.) , . 


. . 183 


Picture-Writing(XIV.). . .172 


The Famine (XX.) . . 


. . 185 



The White Man's Foot (XXI.) 1R6 

Departuhe (XXII.) . . 189 



HIA WATHA. 21 

Conversation, — What legends in other faiths akin 
to some of these ? For the Indian sources of these 
poems, see Schoolcraft's " Hiawatha Legends," first pub- 
lished in 1839 as " Algic Researches : " why did nobody- 
read " Algic Researches," and everybody read Hiawa- 
tha? (See Life, 84-7.) Ideal and real Indians. Long- 
fellow's Indian " none the less typical because ideal- 
ized : " can that be true ? Our " Indian Problem." A 
nineteenth-century joke, — " The only good Indian is a 
dead Indian ! " See Mrs. H. H. Jackson's " Century of 
Dishonor." Read Longfellow's Revenge of Rain-in-the- 
Face, p. 375. The Falls of Minnehaha are on a tiny 
stream near the Mississippi River, between St. Paul and 
Minneapolis. 

(3.) Other LegendB. 

PAGE PAGE 

The Four Winds (II. ) . . , 144 PAU-PrK-KEEWis (XVI.) . . .176 
Hiawatha's Friends Hunting of Pao-Puk-Keewis 

(VI., XV., XVIII.) 154,174,182 (XVH.) 178 

Son of the Evening Star 

(XII.) 167 

Conversation. — Which three poems do you enjoy 
most in the whole series ? For Longfellow's other Indian 
poems, see pp. 10, 85, 116, 288, 375. Compare Bryant's 
and Whittier's Indian work : which of the three poets 
is the most successful with the theme ? Is Hiawatha 
a great poem ? " The poet's masterpiece," say O. B. 
Frothingham and English Mr. Trollope ; " An example 
of poetic power misapplied, — a weakening influence on 
American literature," says H. Norman : and now what 
say you? What makes its fascination? Longfellow's 
own fourfold answer in the Introduction. As to theme, 
parallelisms, and metre, compare the Finnish " Kalevala." 
(See Life, 87-90.) " This monotonous time-beat," is 



22 MILES STANDISH. 

it not well fitted for teUing these primitive legends ? 
Indian, Norse, and Greek mythology, — try to charac- 
terize each in a few words. Yesterday's religion, — 
to-day's poetry : is that a law ? What, then, of to- 
day's religion ? As poetry thus increases, does religion 
fade, or freshen ? 



IV. 

THE PURITANS. 
LONGFELLOW AS POET OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 
(1.) The Courtship of Miles Standish (p. 191). 

" Archly the maiden sviiled, and, with eyes overrunning with laughter. 
Said, in a tremulous voice, ' Why donH you speak /or yourself, John f ' " 

Conversation. — Puritans and Indians. Early rela- 
tions with the Indians : are we as just to them as the 
forefathers were ? Were the Pilgrims '' Puritans " ? 
The difference ? (See Bacon's " Genesis of the New Eng- 
land Churches.") Compare with Evangeline : which 
is the stronger poem ? which the more interesting 
maiden ? What think you of Priscilla's application of 
the Captain's adage ? For another colonial maiden, and 
her square-built courtship, read Elizabeth, p. 299. So 
Longfellow wrote our three poems of old-time love, — 
French, Pilgrim, and Quaker. Our Poet himself was 
one of the results of Priscilla's question, seven genera- 
tions afterwards ; and the best blood of the other, the 
Puritan, colony also ran in him. If of a New Eng- 
land family, you almost certainly have " Mayflower " 
blood in you : have you ever traced up the stream ? 
Explain the Plymouth scenes, — the meeting-house, 



JOHN ENDICOTT. 23 

psalm-book, terrible winter, graves on the hill, Indian 
challenge, the Elder, the Captain, John Alden, his bull, 
a Pilgrim's home, etc. (See Banvard's " Plymouth and 
the Pilgrims ; " Drake's " Nooks and Corners of the 
New England Coast," ch. 17, 18.) Boughton's pictures 
of Pilgrim life, — " Priscilla," "Return of the May- 
flower," " On the Way to Meeting." This poem is pub- 
lished in " Riverside Literature Series " in two forms, 
— as No. 2, with notes ; as No. 3, cut and arranged for 
private theatricals : each 15 cts. 

(2.) John Endicott (N. E. T., p. 5). 

" Scourged in three towns ! " 

" The pointed gable and the pent-house door. 
The meeting-house with leaden-latticed panes. 
The narrow thoroughfares, the crooked lanes. ^^ 

Conversation. — Puritans and Quakers. Was the 
Quaker spirit praiseworthy ? The view then, and the 
view now. State the case, as well as you can, for each 
party. The lesson from this conflict of consciences. The 
tenderness-in-sternness of the Puritan. Do you not feel 
sympathy with Endicott as well as reverence for the 
Quakers ? Compare Whittier's poems on the same 
theme, " Cassandra Southwick," " In the Old South 
Church," " The King's Missive," etc. See Hallowell's 
" Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts ; " and for a gen- 
eral sketch of the Quaker history and doctrines, see Ban- 
croft's " United States," 1883 edition, vol. i. 528-51. 



ii4 GILES COREY. 

(3.) Giles Corey (N. E. T., p. 99). 

" The common madness of the time, 
When, in all lands thai lie within the sound 
Of Sabbath bells, a Witch was burned or drowned.'*'' 

Conversation. - — Puritans and Witches. The origin 
of the belief in witches ; its connection with the Bible 
and with modern Spiritualism. State the case for the 
Puritans : the witches, victims of the Puritans, — and 
the Puritans, " victims of their own times." Did the 
" witches " themselves believe in witchcraft ? Suppose 
you had lived in the seventeenth century, would you not, 
on the whole, have chosen to be a Puritan ? and if so, 
would you not have believed in witches ? and if so, what 
would you have said in Salem in 1692 ? The lesson of 
this tragedy. (See Lecky's " Rationalism in Europe," 
ch. 1. ; Lowell's " Among My Books ; " Upham's " Sa- 
lem Witchcraft.") Compare Whittier's poems, " Proph- 
ecy of Samuel Sewall," " Witch's Daughter," etc. Was 
it worth while to write these two tragedies ? See the 
Poet's motives hinted in his Prologues. As dramas, are 
they successful ? 

The Puritan element in American life, — its good and 
its harm ; its prose and its poetry ; its earnestness and 
its quaintness. (See Lowell's essay " New England Two 
Centuries ago " in " Among my Books.") Compare 
Longfellow's three pictures of Puritan life — its sun- 
shine and its gloom — with Hawthorne's pictures of the 
same life. An article on "The Puritan Element in 
Longfellow," in '* Living Age," No. 2002. 



SHORT POEMS OF OUR HISTORY. 26 



(4.) Short Poems of our History. 

** Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
Our faith triumphant o^er our fears, 
Are aU with thee, — are all with thee ! '* 



PAGE PA0B 

Skeleton in Armor. ... 25 Warning 44 

Baron of St. Castine . . . 288 Cumberland 226 

Rhyhe of Sir Christopher . 314 Christmas Bells 319 

Eliot's Oak 381 Killed at the Foed . . . 321 

Lady Wentworth .... 283 Nameless Grave 367 

Ballad of French Fleet . 376 Decoration Day 408 

Paul Revere's Ridb . . . 235 Revenge of RAiH-m-THE-FA.CE 375 

To Driving Cloud .... 85 Boston 383 

Slave in Disilal Swamp . . 42 Prbsidbnt Garfield . . . 408 

Slave Singing 42 



QuAjRooN Girl 43 Building o? Ship (close) . . 126 

Conversation. — What makes a nation's history ro- 
mantic? Is ours rich, or poor, in themes for poets? 
For Longfellow's own answer, see Drift- Wood, 120. 
Compare Longfellow, Lowell, and Whittier, as poets of 
our history. Longfellow's " playful freedom with dates 
and facts " (G. E. Ellis) : can you point to any in- 
stances ? His poems of Anti-Slavery, — so strong, but 
why so few, and all so early ? Was it from a love of 
Peace, stronger than a hatred of Oppression ? Which 
ought to have been the stronger ? Does Charles Sum- 
ner's life-long friendship guarantee the poet right in tliis 
matter ? Patriotism and Culture : the more cosmopol- 
itan, the less patriotic, — is that a rule ? " His intense 
nationality ; " " He seemed to foreigners the American 
Laureate ; " " He is now said to have been the least na- 
tional of our poets." Not national, but simply human : 
— which judgment is right? For his own thought about 
" nationality aaid universality in literature," see Poems. 



26 GOLDEN LEGEND. 

p. 313 ; and Kavanagh, pp. 117-20 ; and " North 
American Review," xxxiv. 69-78. 

For origin of Skeleton in Armor, see Life, 237, 182, 
235. See how different the " Voyage to Vinland " be- 
comes in Lowell's Poems. For Norsemen in America, 
see Bryant's " United States," vol. i. 35-63 ; or Ander- 
son's " America not Discovered by Columbus." Has 
Enceladus, p. 226, any under-meaning, like the Warn- 
ing ? Had Paul Revere's Ride, written in Jan., 1861, 
an under-thought? For the Ride, see Frothingham's 
" Siege of Boston," pp. 51-59 ; and compare other fa- 
mous Rides, — " Sheridan's Ride," by Buchanan Read, 
and Browning's " How they Brought the Good News 
from Ghent to Aix ; " and see p. 377. For Nameless 
Grave, see Life, 222 ; and for the Garfield sonnet, Life, 
152. The close of Building of Ship came to Longfel- 
low while he and Sumner were talking together during 
the excitement over the Fugitive Slave Law. Compare 
it with Horace, Bk. L, Ode XIV. ; also Holmes's '' Old 
L'onsides." 



V. 

MEDIiEVAL LEGENDS. 
(1.) The Golden Legend, 

*' O beauty of holiness, 
Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness .' 
The deed divine 

Is written in characters of gold. 
That never shall grow old." 

The poem might be cut, arranged, and cast for an 
evening's dramatic reading, with pauses between the 
parts to explain historical allusions and to enjoy the 



GOLDEN LEGEND. 27 

similes, — some of them little poems in themselves : 
such allusions as will be found on pages 18, 27, 32, 38^ 
42, 44, 49, 85, 114, 133, 138, 150, 154, 161, 171, 173, 
174, 177, 179, 180, 192 ; such similes as those on pages 
30, 31, 62, 70, 71, 73, 76, 109, 110, 113, 121, 123, 124, 
127, 153, 159, 165, 166, 168, 169, 193. 

Or another way : Let some one sketch the legend and 
its sources ; another tell how miracle-plays rose and 
grew into our modern drama, and describe the Passion 
Play at Ober-Ammergau ; another speak of the great 
Schools of the 11-1 4th centuries ; another read a little 
paper on the Lucifers of literature ; another be ready 
with views of Strasburg Cathedral and Holbein's " Dance 
of Death," and of convent scenes : and illustrate all by 
readings from Longfellow thus using the poem as a 
series of pictures of mediseval life, e. g., — 

PAGE PAGE 

Catliedral .... 7, 74, 83-7 Refectory 129 

Confessional ^55 The Penitent 126 

Preaching 81 Jolly Friars .... 129-40 

Miracle-Play 89 Nunnery 141 

Madonna 164, 188 Castle 25, 30 

Relics, Images . . 108, 164, 188 Miimesinger and Crusader 

Pilgrims 160 30, 75-8, 142-6, 194 

Dance of Death .... 150-4 Scholastics 173 

Convent Life : — Physicians .... 17, 28, 176 

Cellar 112 Reformers, — Luther, p. ix. of 

Scriptorium 118 " Second Interlude. " 

Cloisters 121 

Conversation. — Is Elsie a real girl to you ? Elsie's 
motive, — did it differ in any way from Evangeline's ? 
Notice how much alike in substance, and even in form, 
the two poems are, in spite of all differences. The 
meaning of the Legend? (pp. 197-204.) Which of 
the two poems best illustrates lines 16, 17, of Evange- 
line ? Why ? Which do you enjoy the more on the first 



28 GOLDEN LEGEND. 

reading ? Which one keeps growing on you at the 
third? The Christ (p. 89), Elsie, and her parents, as 
types of self-sacrifice : its all-conquering power. What is 
the secret in all " vicarious atonements " ? and what its 
connection with the other secret of self-sacrifice, in Matt, 
xxiii. 12 ? Do you rank the Legend high as a drama ? 
Compare it with Goethe's " Faust." 

The shadow of Death that seems to haunt the poem 
and the Middle Ages (e. g., see p. 150), — whence came 
it ? The all-pervading mediaeval belief in the Devil, — 
whence came that, and wliat came of it ? Compare Mil- 
ton's and Goethe's Satans with Longfellow's. The last, 
" the least devilish Devil ever conceived : " coidd our 
Longfellow have drawn a worse one? Is the Devil 
handsome, or ugly ? Is the Devil dead ? Yesterday's 
horror, — to-day's joke. Is Lucifer's argument (p. 64) 
the argument by which hunters justify their sport ? 
Why not miracle-plays now, if then ? and in New York, 
if in Ober-Ammergau ? If miracle-carols, why not mir- 
acle-plays, at Christmas ? For a fine prose-setting to 
Longfellow's miracle-play read the Christmas chapter in 
Symonds's " Sketches in Southern Europe," vol. i. 

What is Longfellow's thought in linking the Divine 
Tragedy, the Golden Legend, and the New England 
Tragedies together into Christus, a Mystery ? Do the 
Introitus and Interludes explain it ? Does not the 
Finale? The thought in an early form dates back in 
his Journal to 1841. Who was the Abbot Joachim 
of the first Interlude (p. 153), and how much truth 
is there in his idea of " Three Ages " ? (See Nean- 
der s " Church History," vol. iv. 220-232 ; or Milman's 
" Latin Christianity," vii. 29.) Roman Catholicism and 
Puritanism, — which appears to the better advantage in 



MEDIEVAL LEGENDS. 29 

Chrlstus ? Is each fairly represented ? Suggest a fourth 
poem to represent to-day's religion and complete the 
Christus. Would Lowell's " Cathedral " answer ? But 
would not the " Finale " still be that which Longfellow 
has written? (N. E. T., pp. 184-6.) 

(2.) Shorter Legends. 

" Old legends of the monkish page, 
Traditions of the saint and sage, 
Tales that have the rime of age, 
And chronicles of eld. ''^ 

page page 
Saga op King Olap : — Torquemada 264 

I. Challenge of Thor . . 246 Kambalu 275 

II. Olaf's Return . . . .247 Cobbler of Hagenau ... 277 

V. Skerry of Shrieks . . 249 Legend Beautiful .... 286 

VI. Wraith of Ooin . . . 250 Charlemagne 294 

IX. Thangbrand the Priest 253 Emma and Eginhard. . . . 295 

XII. Olaf's Christmas . . 255 Mokk op Casal-Maggiore . . 304 

XIII., XIV. Long Serpent 256, 257 Scanderbeq 309 

XXI. Olaf's Death-Drink . 262 "In Medlbval Rome". . . 357 

xxu. Nun of Nidabos . . 2G2 Dutch Picture 373 

TegnAr's Drapa 133 Leap of Roushan Beg . . .377 

Skeleton in Armor .... 25 Children's Crusade .... 406 

Norman Baron 80 Monk Felix G. L. 32 

King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn 132 Christ and Sultan's Daugh- 

Falcon op Ser Fedbrigo , . 237 ter G. L. 38 

Kino Robert of Sicily . . . 243 

Conversation. — Does Longfellow know the art of 
story-telling ? Has he written true " ballads " ? What 
is a " ballad " .'* What makes it so difficult for a modern 
poet to write one ? The most spirited of these stories ? 
Compare the " Wayside Inn " series with Boccaccio's 
" Decamaron," Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales," Morris's 
" Earthly Paradise." 

Olaf's Saga: its source the old Icelandic *' Heims- 
kringia," for which see Laing's " Sea-Kings of Norway." 
Are the metres adapted to the action in the different 



30 BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 

ballads ? Compare the " Frithiof s Saga " in Drift?- 
Wood, p. 53 : may not that poem — its theme and its 
different metres — have suggested to Longfellow his ? 
Compare this spread of Christianity in northern Europe 
with the spread of Mahommedanism in northern Africa. 
(See Neander's " Church History," vol. iii. 293-307 : 
and Mihnan's " Latin Christianity," vol. ii. 150-171.) 

" Force rules the world still," — " The law of force is 
dead : " which is right, Thor or Tegner ? With Tegner's 
Drapa compare Matthew Arnold's " Balder Dead ; " and 
read the story in Cox's " Romances of the Middle Ages," 
p. 374. For King Robert of Sicily, see Life, 92, 183; 
and compare Browning's " Boy and Angel." 



VI. 

SEASIDE AND FIRESIDE 

(1.) The Building of the Ship (p. 122). 

" Silent, majestical and slow, 
The white ships haunt it to and fro ^ 

" My soul is full of longing 
For the secret of the sea, 
And the heart of the great ocean 
Sends a thrilling pulse through me." 

Conversation. — The theme fascinates Longfellow, — 
see pp. 156, 256 : is it a memory of boyhood days in 
Portland ? Notice the building of the poem itself, — 
three poems in one. Compare Schiller's " Song of the 
Bell," and his three in one. " Longfellow not a poet of 
Nature," unless, perhaps, " justly called by eminence our 
poet of the Sea:" is Mr. Stedman right in these two 
judgments ? For other poems of the Sea, see 



HANGING OF THE CRANE. 31 

PAGE PAGE 

Sea- Weed 86 Elegiac 398 

ChrysP.or 126 Tide Rises, Tide Falls ... 400 

Secret of the Sea 126 Becalmed 402 

Twilight 127 City and Sea 407 

Lighthouse .128 Elegiac Verse, I., VI. . . . 409 

Fire of Drift-Wood .... 129 Wreck of the Hesperus ... 27 

Palingenesis 317 Sir Humphrey Gilbert . . .127 

BeUs of Lynn 320 Phantom Ship 212 

Milton 305 Discoverer of North Cape . . 222 

Sound of the Sea 366 Ballad of Carmilhan .... 280 

Summer Day by the Sea . . 306 BaUad of French Fleet . . .376 

Tides 367 Golden Legend 166-8 

Dedication to Ultima Thule . 394 John Endicott 20 

On the other hand, there are few mountain-glimpses : 
can you find any except on pp. 8, 115, 119, 348, 405, 
464 ; G. L., 30, 157 ; Hyperion, 201, 261? For the ori- 
gin of Wreck of the Hesperus, see Life, 197. For Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, see Bancroft's " United States," vol. 
i. 66-9. If, as is said, Longfellow and Bayard Taylor 
agreed in liking Chrysaor best of the shorter poems, can 
you agree with them ? 

(2.) The Hanging of the Crane (p. 352). 

" Of love, that says not mine and thine, 
But ours, for ours is thine and mine." 

. Conversation. — " Pendre la cremaillere " is the 
French for " house-w^arming." The dearest picture of 
these six ? For other poems of Home, see p. 10, above. 
Is not Longfellow, by eminence, our poet of the Home, 
also ? What does he lack to be the poet of home-life ? 
With the serial structure of this poem compare his Rain 
in Summer, p. 81 ; Sand of the Desert, p. 130 ; Rope- 
walk, p. 220 ; the close of Matthew Arnold's " Strayed 
Reveller ; " and Bryant, with whom it was a favorite 
form. $4000 said to have been paid Longfellow for 
this poem : see Life, 236, 106. It is a good poem to 
be presented in tableaux. 



82 KJ^RAMOS. 

(3.) K^ramos (p. 368). 

" Vases and urns and bas-reliefs. 
Memorials of Jorgotten griefs." 

" Tfie tiles that in our nurseries 
Filled us with wonder and delight, 
Or haunted us in dreams at night." 

Conversation. — See Life, 110-12. A keramical hour, 
or evening, might be planned, each one bringing what 
pottery he can to illustrate the poem, and three or foi r 
persons reading short papers on the art ; tell about Pa- 
lissy and Delia Robbia, the story of your "nursery 
tiles " (see p. 82), and of " that solitary man," etc. 
Read Keats's " Ode on a Grecian Urn ; " and with tl e 
potter's song compare Robert Browning's " Rabbi Ben 
Ezra" (last ten verses), and the pot-talk of old Omar 
Khayyam ; Longfellow's own Drinking Song, p. 89 ; and 
read, as somewhat akin to all this, his iiery Casting of 
the Statue, p. 459. Talk over the lines, " Art is the 
child of Nature," to see how far they apply to the sev- 
eral arts. The " Longfellow Jug," commemorating the 
Poet and this poem, is sold by Richard Briggs, 287 Wash- 
ington St., Boston ; price, including expressage to New 
York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, $5.00. See its de- 
scription in " Literary World," Feb. 26, 1881, p. 86. 
This poem a fine one to illustrate, scene by scene, with 
photographs. 



GOD IN NATURE AND HISTORY. 



33 



VII. 

GOD. 

(1.) The Presence in Nature. 

" Into the blithe and breathing air. 
Into the solemn wood. 
Solemn and silent everywhere ! 
Nature with folded hands seemed there. 
Kneeling at her evening prayer ! 
Like one in prayer I stood." 



Prelude to Voices . . . 


1 


Hymn to Night .... 


2 


Flowers 


4 


Spirit of Poetry . . . 


9 


L'Envoi 


25 


" While Evangeline " . 


114 


Day op Sunshine . . . 


227 


Wayside Inn, Prelude III. 


292 



Wanderer's Night-Songs. . 340 
Masque of Pandora . . 348-9 
St. John's, Cambridge . . . 384 

Old St. David's 398 

My Cathedral 400 

Night 401 

" The Night " , . G. L. 43, 168 



(2.) The Eternal Goodness in History and Lifa 

*' Love is the root of creation ; God''s essence ; worlds without number 
Lie in his bosom like children." 

*^ Itis Lucifer, 
The son of mystery ; 
And since God suffers him to be, 
He, too, is God^s minister, 
And labors for some good 
By us not understood ! " 

" Time has laid his hand 
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting U, 
But as a harper lays his open palm 
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.^'' 



page 
Children of Lord's Supper 32-3 

Rainy Day 37 

" God is Just " 100 

*' The Creator " , , . . . 143 

Two Angels 215 

Nun of Nidaros 202 

Christmas Bells 319 

Palingenesis 317 

To-MOBjaow 321 



Shadow 367 

Nature 380 

K^RAMOs (Potter's Song) . . 368 
"This life op ours" 

D. T. 22 ; G. L. 109-10, 124 

Retribution . 94, 346, 351, 399 ; 

G. L. 66, 79, 182, 197-200 

Abbot Joachim . . D. T. 155-9 

St. John ... N. E. T. 183-6 



34 THE OVER-SOUL WITHIN THE SOUL. 



(3.) The Over-Soul within the Soul. 

" As theflovnng of the ocean fills 
Each creek and branch thereof, and then retire*, 
Leaving behind a sweet and wholesome savor ; 
So doth the virtue and the life of God 
Flow evermore into the hearts of those 
Whom he hath made partakers of his nature.^* 



PAGE PAGE 

CmLDREN OF Lord's Supper 29-35 Sovnw op Sea 366 

Evangeline (compass-flower) 118 Three Silences 382 

Hiawatha (" Ye whose ") . 142 " Count Hugo once " . 6. L. 127 

Sandalphon 225 "This happened" . G. L. 147-8 

Giotto's Tower 321 " As the flowing " N. E. T. 20-1 

Divina Commedia, I. . . . 322 " On the First Day " N. E. T. 50 
Santa Teresa's Book-Mark . 340 



Conversation. — Has Longfellow a deep sense of the 
mystery of Nature ? or any sense of it as Fate ? Does 
it seem to put many questions to him ? History and lit- 
craturt are full of poems for him, — but does Science 
sing " rhymes of the universe " to him, as to Tennyson 
and Emerson? (See Kavanagh, ch. 4, for a poet's 
mathematics ! Yet see Poems, 415, 456, etc., and recall 
his friendship with Agassiz, 224.) Does Science deepen 
Poetry and Religion, and is the best of both to come ? 
or does Science quench them both ? 

Has Longfellow given us any good hymns ? What 
makes a real hymn ? The better poem, the worse hymn, 
— is that true by necessity ? Why true so generally, 
then ? Can you turn, in his poems, to many passages 
of trust and worship ? To any of questioning and doubt ? 
Does he often name the name " God " ? Yet can we 
call him other than a " religious " poet .'' Wherein, then, 
does his religiousness show itself ? Compare with Whit- 
tier : how is it that one has furnished so many songs 



CHARACTER,— ITS MAKING. 35 

and almost no hymns, and the other so many hymns and 
almost no songs ? Do you know the " real " hymns by 
the Poet's brother, Samuel Longfellow ? (p. 135.) 

Can you make out from the poems the Poet's 
" church " ? (Life, 162-3, 258.) For his church-going, 
see Poems, 78, 384, 398, 400. For his " minister," see 
Kavanagh, ch. 18, 19. What of that faith in Lucifer, 
G. L., 200 ? Is not Longfellow, " by eminence " again, 
our poet of the Night ? Add to those named above 
his other poems about its calm, its voices, its stars, and 
see how noble a group they make, — to match those of 
the Sea, p. 31, above. 



VIIL 

MAN. 
(1.) Character, — its Making. 

" Act, — act in the living present ! 
Heart within, and God overhead ! " 

" Know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong.''^ 

" But wanting still the glory of the spire.^^ 

PAGE PAGE 

Psalm op Lite 2 Two Rivers 383 

Light of Stabs 3 Sifting op Petek 399 

Excelsior 40 Windmill 400 

BriLDERS 130 Sdndown 407 

Ladder op St. Augustine . . 212 Loss and Gain 413 

Goblet OP Life 39 Forgiveness . 33, 104; G. L. 128 

M.UDEXHOOD 39 Temptation Resisted 

Building op the Ship ("He 342-4; D. T. 13, 76, 117 

knew") 125 Temptation Yielded to 

Hiawatha (V.) 151 344-60; G. L. 20-4,61-8 

Something Left Undone . . 227 Penitence 

King Robert op Sicily . . . 243 D. T. 42, 136 ; G. L. 60, 127-8 

Wind over Chimney . . . ,320 Retribution. — See above, under 

Giotto's Towkb 321 "Eternal Goodness." 



36 HEROES AND SAINTS. 

Conversation. — What made the young poet's first 
cluster of poems become such " household words " ? The 
most stirring verse to you in each of the first five poems ? 
(For the origin, etc., of the first three, see Life, 181-2, 
64.) Is the Psalm of Life merely " a clever marshaling 
and burnishing of commonplaces " ? Compare with it 
Hyperion, 24-30, 85, 379-81, and the closing chapter 
of Kavanagh. Longfellow's own explanation of Excel- 
sior, in Life, 202 : do the lines retain their popularity ? 
For Maidenhood, see Life, 224. Is the last verse of 
Wind over Chimney true for most workers ? Giotto's 
Tower, — is not the want of reverence often a mere 
want of poetry ? The element of imagination in rever- 
ence. Sifting of Peter, — which verse repeats a favorite 
emphasis of Longfellow ? 

(2.) Heroes and Saints. 

" Whene''er a noble deed is wrougM, 
Whenever is spoken a noble thought. 
Our hearts, in glad surprise. 
To higher levels rise.'''' 

PAGE PAGE 

CoPLAS DE Manrique . . . 14-16 Belisaeius 362 

To W. E. Channing .... 41 Palissy (in Kbramos) . . .369 

Good Part 42 Poets 381 

Evangeline . . . 104, 108, 118 Michael Angelo .... 415-67 

Santa Filomena 222 Luther . . N. E. T. IX. -XVI. 

Legend Beautiful .... 286 Prophets D.T.1-4 

DiviNA CoMMEDiA(L-VI.) . , 322 "The blessed Mary" . G. L. 164 

Judas Maccab's {II., III.) 326-32 Elsie in G. L. ' 

Prometheus . ... . 211, 343 Edith and the Coreys in 

Charles Sumner 358 N. E. T. 

Conversation. — The difference between the " hero " 
and the " saint " ? With the Coplas de Manrique com- 
pare Wordsworth's " Happy Warrior." The noblest of 
the Dante sonnets ? " The divine Dante with wliich I 



THE CHRIST. 37 

begin every morning ! " writes Longfellow. " I write a 
few lines every day before breakfast. It is the first 
thing I do, — the morning prayer, the keynote of the 
day." A statue of Dante stands upon a book-case in the 
study, and a bit of wood from Dante's casket is treas- 
ured in a little shrine. The fascination of the Sonnet : 
why is a good sonnet apt to be veri/ good ? (See Nor- 
man's article in the " Living Age," No. 2015, p. 302.) 
The Michael Angelo, a noble poem for a history class 
to study, — using with it Grimm's " Life of Michael An- 
gelo," Symonds's " Renaissance," etc., and illustrating 
with photographs. 

Now, with all these poems of Man in thought, what 
should you say were Longfellow's chief life emphases? 
The reason why most people like sermons in song ? Are 
such sermons usually good poems ? What does the 
maxim " Art for art's sake " mean, — and amount to? 
Does a moral purpose help, or hinder, art? Can that 
be noble art which has no moral effect ? Does Longfel- 
low too often tag a moral to his song ? Is the effect of 
his poetry, on the whole, active or passive, — does it 
stir you, or rest you, — teach duty, or beauty, — give 
strength, or serenity, — help, or pleasure ? 



(3.) The Christ. 

•* Aiid evermore beside him an his way 
The vTiseen Christ shall move." 

PAGE PAGE 

The BniTH . . 378 ; G. L. 89-101 The Crucified . . D. T. 114-lil 

SCHOOL-JJAYS. D. T. 108 : G. L. 102-8 The Risen 

"TiCE Good Master" D. T. 9-113 D. T. 141-8 ; G. L. 79-83 

^ ^, (33,35,135; D.T.15G; N.E.T. 185, 104, 

THEbPmm^^CHHisT . { 399 ; G. L. 48. 5(3,109, 286 iG.L. 38 



38 THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 

Conversation. — Does the Gospel story gain or lose 
color by the dramatizing? e. g.j compare pp. 82-5 with 
Luke xviii. 9-30. Notice the almost untouched figure 
of Jesus against the altered background. Of the bright- 
ened figures in that background, which is drawn the 
best, — Mary Magdalene, 42 ; Manahem, 51 ; Bartimeus, 
66 ; Mary and Martha, 85 ; Gamaliel, 107 ; Barabbas, 
129 ? Do you accept the explanation of the Terapta' 
tion, 13 ; and of Judas, 136 ? Is any light cast on Nic- 
odemus, 62 ; Pilate, 127 ; the Cross, 138 ? With pp. 
92-9 compare Helen of Tyre, 397. On the whole, are 
you glad Longfellow wrote the Divine Tragedy ? (See 
Life, 103, 151.) What should you take to be Longfel- 
low's own thought of Jesus ? And, once more, what is 
his thought in the series called '"Christus " ? The rela- 
tion of the actual, the historic, and the spiritual Christ 
to each other ? 

(4.) The Immortal Life. 

" Only a step into the outer air 
Out of a tent already luminous 
With light that shines through its transparent walls I " 



1 


page 




page 


Reaper and Flowers . . . 


3 


Azrael 


. 293 


Footsteps of Angels . 


4 

24 


Mother's Ghost .... 


. 312 


Song op the Silent Land . 


Charles Sumner .... 


. 358 


Children of Lord's Supper . 


34 


Three Friends of Mine . 


, . 364 


God's-Acre 


37 


Vittoria Colonna . . , 


. 374 


Evangeline ..... 119- 


, 120 
129 


Delia 


. 380 


Resignation 


Nature 


. 380 


Open Window 


132 


Bayard Taylor .... 


, . 394 


SUSPIRIA 


135 


Chamber over the Gate . 


, . 395 


Hiawatha (XV., XIX., XX.) 




Auf Wiedersehen . . . 


. 405 


174, 183 


, 185 


Victor and Vanquished . 


, . 414 


Warden of the Cinque Ports 


213 


Michael Angelo . 447, 450, 4C6-7 


Haunted Houses .... 


214 


Golden Legend 




Two Angels 


215 


51.71, 121,150-4, 


166, 183 


Haunted Chamber .... 


228 


New England Tragedies 


107-12 


Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi . 


242 







BROTHERHOOD. 89 

Conversation. — Which poem here touches and helps 
us most ? Does Longfellow in any poem hint the 
ground of this perfect faith? (See Hyperion, Bk. II., 
ch. 6 ; also, Bk. IV., ch. 5 and 8.) The secret of fear, 
and of fearlessness, before Death : see the Prince and 
Elsie in G. L. (e. ^., p. 180). Compare Longfellow and 
Whittier as poets of this trust ; and with Victor and 
Vanquished read Browning's " Prospice." Suspiria and 
part of Hiawatha, XV., were read at the Poet's fu- 
neral, — and the snow-flakes began to fall (227). 



IX. 

BROTHERHOOD. 
(1.) With the Lo-wly and Oppressed^ 

" Tht friend of every friendless beasV 





PAGE 




PAGE 


Poems on Sla\t;ry . . 


. 41-44 


Walter von der Vogelwetd 


88 


Jewish Cemetery . . 


. . 216 


Statue over Cathedral Door 


93 


TORQUEMADA . . . . 


. . 264 


Emperor's Bird's-Nest . . 


215 


RoPEWALK (verse 8) . . 


. . 220 


Birds of Killingworth . . 


268 


Challenge 


. . 229 


Bell of Atri 


273 


King Robert of Sicily 


. . 243 


Interlude, after Atri . . 


275 


Legend Beautifi'l . . 


. . 286 


Wayside Inn, Prelude III. . 


292 



Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face 375 Sermon of St. Francis 

(2.) Peace on Earth. 

" A voice, a chime, 

A chant sublime 

Of peace on earth, good will to men!'''' 





PAGE 




PAGE 


Arsenal 


. 78 


Peace-Pipe .... 


. . 142 


OCCT'LTATION OF OrION . . 


. 84 


Nun of Nidaros . . 


. . 2G2 


Tegner's Drapa . . . 


. 133 


Christmas Bells. . 


. . 319 



(3.) The Universal Church. 

" The simple thought 
By the Great Master taught. 



40 THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. 

And that remaineth still : 
Not he that repeaieih the name. 
But he that doeth the will I " 



PAGE 




PAG3 


Hiawatha ("Tc whose") . 142 


Abbot Joachim 


. . D. T. 157-9 


Wayside Inn (The "The- 


Prologue . . , 


. . N. E. T. 8 


ologian") .... 234, 263 


St. John . . , 


. N. E. T. 183-0 


Bells of San Blas .... 411 







Conversation. — Has he forgotten any class of suf- 
ferers ? See the collection of his poems and prose-ex- 
tracts called " Seven Voices of Sympathy ; " and for 
anecdotes of his kindness, see Life, 152, 157-62, 223, 
242. But says Stedman, in the " Century " article 
(Oct. 1883, pp. 929, 930, 940), "Neither war nor grief 
ever too much disturbed the artist-soul. Tragedy went 
no deeper with him than its pathos : it was another ele- 
ment of the beautiful : " are these words true, or harsh "i 
(See Hyperion, 306.) How does imagination increase 
sympathy ; — and how lessen it ? Are selfish persons, as 
a rule, unimaginative ? Are poets, artists, musicians, as 
a rule, unselfish and heroic ? Why, — or why not ? 
Was Longfellow ever the soldier of a cause '^. Is that 
to the credit, or the discredit, of his nature and his 
culture ? Are rounded men often such soldiers ? In 
whose behalf did he come his nearest to being one ? 
" That birds have souls," can you concede ? (p. 292.) 
Ought the Bells of San Bias to be included above ? 
Notice, again, its last lines, — the prophecy with which 
our Poet closes his work. Compare Whittier and Lowell 
as his fellow-poets of the "Universal Church." 

Now, can you sum up our Poet's " creed " ? and put 
each article of it in his own words ? " Too broadly 
human to suit the specialized tastes of the sects." (O. 
W. Holmes.) Can a poet in our day be a dogmatist ? 



THE POET. 41 



THE POET. 
HIS INSPIRATION AND HIS MINISTRY. 



For voices pursiie him by day. 

And haunt him by night. 
And he lisiens, and needs mtist obey. 
When the Angel says : ' Wriie.'' " 







page 


Prelude to Voices 


OP 


Night 


1 


Flowers . . . 






4 


Spirit op Poetry 


. 


. 


9 


SpAi<isH Student (" 


Vidious") 


52 


Carillon . . . 






76 


Rain m Summer . 






81 


Seaweed . . . 






86 


Day is Done . . 




•. 


87 


Walter von der Vogelweid 




88; 


G. 


L. 76-7, 


,142 


Arrow and Song 




. . . 


90 


Curfew .... 






94 


Seaside and Fireside, 


Ded'n 


121 


Birds of Passage . 




. 131, 


313 


Caspar Becerra . 


. 


. . . 


132 


Pegasus in Pound 




. . . 


133 


Singers .... 






13+ 



PA0E 

Hiawatha .... 141,154,174 

Prometheus 211 

Daylight and Moonuoht . 216 

Snowflakes 227 

Fata Morgana 228 

Vox Populi 229 

Epimetheus 231 

Wind over Chimney . . . 320 

Tides 367 

Descent op Muses .... 381 

Poets 381 

Moods 384 

Broken Oar 385 

Jugurtha 396 

Poet and his Songs ... 401 

Becalmed . 402 

Possibilities 414 



(1.) Longfellow as Poet Laureate. 

" A sweetness as of home-made bread.'''' 

Conversation. — Whence comes the Poet's inspiration, 
according to Longfellow? How often he tries to teU 
us ! And what is his ideal of the " ministry of song " ? 
Compare his answers with those of other poets : do they 
all feel the mission, and the mystery about themselves ? 
Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes, and 
Lowell : among our six elder poets Longfellow was the 
only poet-by-profession, — was that to his profit, or to his 
loss, as poet? A man of no "collisions," — was that 
helpful ? What beside poet were the other five poets ? 



42 AS POET LAUREATE. 

Can Longfellow be called " original " ? If so, in what 
sense ? Howells speaks of " his exquisite intellectual 
refinement, which has troubled shallowness with doubts 
of his original power." Stedraan says, " The clerkly 
singer fulfilled his office, which was not in the least cre- 
ative. . . . His originality did not consist in word or 
motive," — but in what ? Norton says, "Not by depth 
of thought or by original views of Nature," — but by 
what ? 

Can you illustrate from his poems the difference be- 
tween " imagination " and " fancy " ? Which the more 
abounds in him ? 

The secret of so little dramatic power, with so much 
success in story-telling and in genre pictures ? Could he 
write a prose story ? 

Our Poet before Nature : did he see t^, or into it, or 
too much through it to " the land of Song within " ? 
Which must one do, to be poet ? which, to be the great- 
est poet ? See Prelude, p. 1 ; and above, pp. 19, 34. 

What poems show humor ? But so little ! Is humor 
the sense of contrast ? and is one's share of it inversely 
proportioned to his sense of harmony; — does sympathy 
with the beautiful by so much exclude the grotesque ? 
" A certain beautiful gayety, which is to humor what 
bouquet is to the body of wine." (Howells.) 

Some happy absences : is there anything morbid in his 
poetry, any satire, any egotism, any appeal for sympa- 
thy with himself, any straining for effect, anything in 
poor taste, — to spoil this " sweetness as of home-made 
bread " ? "To some it seemed shallow because it was 
translucent." But is it shallow, or not ? What verses, 
if any, are obscure to you ? Read J. Vila Blake's two 
fine sonnets about Longfellow, in Life, 330. 



AS POET LAUREATE. 43 

Note the variety of his work, both as to theme and 
form. Is its quality equal, or " very unequal " ? After 
his first deepening (see Prelude to Voices of Night, p. 
1), did his quality change, or remain essentially the 
same, between youth and age ? Does his power grow 
up to the end ? In what class of poems do you think 
his thought at the loftiest, and his art at the noblest ? 
In that class does any other American poet equal him ? 

Is he an " artist " in his work ? " Like Cellini in 
gems and metals, he was a worker in words." (C. A. 
Bartol.) " A craftsman of unerring taste, who always 
gave us of his best. ... A lyrical artist, whose taste 
outranked his inspiration." (E. C. Stedman.) Can you 
detect the " work " in the poems ? Do you think they 
came to him, and from him, swiftly, or slowly ? (See 
Life, 107, 112, 151-2, 181-2, 191-2, 198.) His sense 
of the music of words as tested by the number of his 
poems set to music : and of what else is this a hint ? 
(See Life, 185-7.) 

Does " criticism " mean flaw-finding, or appreciation ? 
AUston's nde of art criticism : " Never judge a work of 
art by its defects." Listen to the AVayside Inn circle 
(the Interludes, etc.) as a company of friendly critics ; 
and for Longfellow's own method of illuminating the 
meaning of an author, see the Notes to his translation 
of Dante. Can you criticise, and at the same time ad- 
mire ? Has your criticism in this study of Longfellow's 
poems tended to make you find, or lose, the poetry in 
them ? Is he more, or less, to you than before the 
study ? " Recognize the instinct that defined his range, 
and value the range at its worth." (Stedman.) And 
now let us try to be true critics, thoughtful, grateful, 
humble, but frank, in answering these questions : — 



44 AS POET WELCOME. 

(1.) To which of his three kinds of "Singers" (p. 
134) does Longfellow himself belong ? 

(2.) Is he right, — " No best in kind " ? 

(3.) What does he lack as poet ? 

(4.) Wherein to you lie his power and charm as 
poet ? Is there not one poem of his own that answers 
well the question for us ? 

(5.) In what order would you at present rank our six 
elder poets of America ? 

(2.) As Poet Welcome. 

" Therefore I hope, as no unwelcome ffuest, 

At your warm f reside, when the lamps are lighted^ 
To have my place reserved among the rest, 
Nor stand as one unsought and uninvited." 

Longfellow with his reader-friends : read again his 
Dedication to Seaside and Fireside, p. 121. Why is our 
feeling towards a poet — towards one's own poet — so 
unlike that felt for any other author ? (See Howells in 
*' North American Review," civ. 540.) Where ought 
Longfellow to be read, — out-doors, or by the fireside ? 
when alone, or when with others ? Is he a man's poet, 
or a woman's poet ? Which of his poems is the woman's 
favorite ? and which the boy's favorite ? Is he a poet's 
poet ? In what sense is he " the poet of the common- 
place " ? and " the poet of the middle-classes " ? Do 
these two phrases come to the same thing ? 

Why has he been so little criticised as yet in Amer- 
ica ? Is the estimate of him changing, — is he now be- 
ginning to seem " elementary " ? or is there " a tendency 
to class him with the poets of mediocrity " ? and is there 
really " much that has little or no permanent value " ? 

What is the secret of his far-reaching popularity with 
so many ages, classes, nations ? (See Life, 357-60, or 



AS POET FAMILIAR, 45 

"Literary World," Feb. 26, 1881, for a long list of 
translations from his works, — even into Polish, Hebrew, 
Chinese !) " The music he wrote is all lying, unwrit- 
ten, in us:' (J. D. Long. See Life, 136-45, for what 
Gov. Long and Dr. Bartol say of him. Also Hyperion, 
237-8.) '' Such a funeral procession as attended him 
in thou|T-ht to his resting-place has never joined the train 
of mourners that followed the hearse of a poet." (0. W. 
Holmes.)' "A master whose greatness has tended to the 
goodness and happiness of men in so potent and fine a 
degree that he has not only made the world wiser and 
pleasanter, but has not added a word's weight to the bit- 
terness and evil of any soul in it." (W. D. Howells.) 

(3.) As Poet Familiar. 

*• And the song, f^-nm bpginnivg to end, 
I found again in the heart of a fi-iend.''* 
" Till the familiar lines 
Are foot paths for tJie- thought of Italy ! " 

Now to compare impressions, each one bringing his 
copy of the Poems, and, if possible, written answers to 
the following questions : — 

(1.) Which seems to you Longfellow's best long 
poem ? his best drama ? his six best sonnets ? and out- 
side of the sonnets, his six best short poems ? Which 
poems seem to you his most passionate, most intense in 
feeling ? and which the most subtle in thought ? 

(2.) Six passages or metaphors whose beauty most 
haunts you ? How many of the lines selected for mot- 
toes can you trace to their homes in the poems ? Sug- 
gest better mottoes all through, submitting them to the 
class. 

(3.) Name twelve " household woras," — daily " foot- 
paths " for our thought. 



46 AS POET FAMILIAR. 

(4.) And can you name your fifty poems, — those 
which you would edit as the Longfellow that will live ? 
those to which Holmes's word applies, " Nothing lasts 
like a coin and a lyric " ? 

The Co7iundru7)is. — A pleasant half-hour at the end 
of each meeting might be spent over historic and literary 
allusions that have a story in them, — such allusions as 
abound, for instance, in the Wayside Inn and Morituri 
Salutamus. Or note these on the way, and now and 
then sift and deal them out by lot for explanation at a 
Conundrum meeting, — the class following, book in hand, 
and each one throwing light. But through all the study 
take care not to lose the poem itself in this mere wayside 
work. 

Your own illustrated edition. Why not gradually il- 
lustrate your home copy of Longfellow for yourself with 
scraps and pictures ? You will have at last a beautiful 
treasure. The Soule Photograph Company. 338 Wash- 
ington St., Boston, will help you to many photographs ; 
and the Life of the Poet, by his brother, will doubtless 
add a personal interest to many of the familiar poems. 



OUTLINES FOR A STUDY OF 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



" The poet of New England. His genius drew its nourishment from her 
soil ; his pages are the mirror of her outward nature, and the strong utterance 
of her hiward life.'''' — Fbancis Pabkman. 

Wbittier is also called 

The Quaker Poet. 

The Hermit of Amesbury. 

The Wood-Thrush of Essex. 

The American Burns. 

The Prophet-Bard of America. 

The Martial Quaker. 

The Poet of Freedom. 

The Sir Galahad of American Song. 

What is the significance of each appellation? 

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL WORKS. 
PiCKARD, Samuel T. 

Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. 2 
vols. 
This is the authoritative life of Wliittier, written 
since his death by his literary executor, who, of 
course, has had fullest access to all sources of infor- 
mation. 



48 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL WORKS. 

Underwood, Francis H. 

John Greenleaf Whittier. A Biography. 

Written about 1881, with Mr. Whittier's sanction, 
and by a personal friend. 
Kennedy, William Sloane. 

John G. Whittier. Ris Life, Genius, and Writings. 
An interesting and fairly satisfactory biography. 
Linton, William James. 

Life of John Greenleaf Whittier. 

An English work. Interesting as showing English 
appreciation of an American poet. The author 
states that, so far as facts go, his book is based upon 
those of Underwood and Kennedy. 
Fields, Annie. 

Authors and Friends. 

Mrs. Fields, whose husband was for many years 
Whittier's publisher and friend, writes of the per- 
sonality of the man, from the standpoint of inti- 
mate personal acquaintance. 
Richardson, Charles F. 

American Literature. Vol. ii. chapter vi. Poets of 
Freedom and Culture. 
Just and well written. 
Stoddard, Richard Henry. 

John Greenleaf Whittier. In Homes and Haunts of 
Our Elder Poets. 
An entertaining chapter, with illustrations, includ- 
ing the old Haverhill schoolhouse. 
White, George M. 

The Local Associations of Whittier's Poems. In 
'• Harper's Monthly " for February, 1883. 
An exceedingly interesting article, with pictures of 
many of the scenes described by Whittier. 



EVENTS IN WHITTIER'S LIFE. 49 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence. 
Poets of America. 

A very satisfactory book of criticism. 

POEMS ON WHITTIER. 

Lowell, James Russell. 

To Whittier, on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. 
A Fable for Critics- 

The passage beginning, — 

" There is Whittier, whose sweUing and vehement heart 
Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart." 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. 

For Whittier's Seventieth Birthday. 

To John Greenleaf Whittier on his Eightieth Birthday. 

In Memory of John Greenleaf Whittier. 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. 

The Three Silences. 
Taylor, Bayard. 

A Friend's Greeting. 
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. 

Ad Vatem. 

NOTEWORTHY FACTS AND EVENTS IN WHITTIER'S 
LIFE. 

Born 1807— died 1892. 

Born same year \ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

( Cornelius Conway Felton. 
Parentage: Of good New England stock, humble, 
but vigorous and honorable.^ 

1 It is an interesting fact that Whittier was remotely related to 
Daniel Webster, on his mother's side, by descent from Christopher 
Hussey, of Hampton, N. H., and his wife, a daughter of Stephen 
Bachelor (or Bachiler) of that town. The Bachelor family were 
famous for their large dark eyes, and both Webster and Whittier 
seem to have inherited "the Bachelor eyes." 



50 EVENTS IN WHITTIER'S LIFE. 

Home training and influence : That of a devout and 
intelligent, but unscholarly Quaker family. (Note the 
inventory of the family library, in Snow-Bound.) 

School education : District school and a little more 
than a year at Haverhill Academy. 

1826. Publication of his poem The Exile's Departure 
in the " Newburyport Free Press," of which 
William Lloyd Garrison was editor, led to close 
association with the great anti-slavery leader. 

1828-36. Editorial work in Boston, and in Hartford, 
Conn., and home life on the farm. 

1833. Open espousal of the anti-slavery cause. Publica- 
tion of Justice and Expediency. 

1835-36. Member of the legislature. 

1836. Removal, after his father's death, to Amesbury. 

From this time until the abolitionists had completed 
their labors, much of Whittier's strength was given to 
the great conflict. He wrote constantly, for a short 
time edited the ''Pennsylvania Freeman," and from 
1847 to 1860 had a semi-editorial connection with the 
"National Era," which became the vehicle for much of 
his work. With the establishment of the " Atlantic 
Monthly " in 1857 he became a contributor, and con- 
tinued so throughout the rest of his life. 

In 1858 he was elected an overseer of Harvard Col- 
lege, which office he held six years. (Note the honor to 
a man who had had no previous connection with Harvard, 
and who was not even college-bred.) 

His later life was serene, enriched by friendships with 
many of the most famous Americans. 

He was never married, and never traveled farther 
from his own home than Washington. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEMS. 51 



POEMS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INTEREST. 

" The life of WhiUier may be read in his poems ; and by putting a note here 
and a date there, a full autobiography might be compiled from them.'" — 
William H. Rideing. 

To my Sister. 

To my Old Schoolmaster. 

The Barefoot Boy. 

The Quaker of the Olden Time. 

In School-Days. 

Ego. 

Snow-Bound. 

The Battle Autumn of 1862. 

Anniversary Poem. 

An Outdoor Reception. 

My Namesake. 

My Triumph. 

My Birthday. 

An Autograph. 

Burning Drift-Wood. 

My Psalm. 

At Eventide. 

What manner of man does Whittier appear, judging 
him from his writings alone ? Does his own testimony 
accord with that of his friends and biograpliers ? Can 
you detect any note of false shame, or scorn for the 
humble circumstances of his youth, or any of self-glori- 
fication in his own attainments ? Do the simple country 
habits to which he was bred cling to him through life, 
or does he cast them off? Is he cosmopolitan or provin- 
cial ? Compare him with Longfellow and Lowell in this 
respect. To what extent does the life of cities influence 



52 NEW ENGLAND SCENERY. 

his writing ? With more of the education of the schools 
would he have been a greater poet ? 



NEW ENGLAND SCENERY. 

" Our stern New England's hills and vales and streams, 
Thy tuneful idyls made them all their own." 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
" The laureate of the ocean beach, the inland lake, the Utile wood-flower, 
and the divine sky/' — Charles F. Richardson. 

The Merrimac. 

Our River. 

Revisited. 

June on the Merrimac. 

Ham])ton Beach. 

The Lakeside. 

Summer by the Lakeside. 

Mountain Pictures. 

Sunset on the Bearcamp. 

Storm on Lake Asquam. 

A Summer Pilgrimage. 

A Sea Dream. 

St. Martin's Summer. 

The Last Walk in Autumn. 

Are Whittier's pictures true ? Have our other New 
England poets done as much for the scenery about 
them ? Do you think that if Whittier had had ample 
opportunities for book-learning when he was a boy, his 
poetry would so abound with beautiful and truthful 
delineations of nature ? Do comparisons with Long- 
fellow, Holmes, and Burns throw any light upon tliis 
question ? Is it, after all, a matter of temperament and 
taste rather than of education ? Can you determine 



LIFE, LEGEND, AND HISTORY. 53 

what kind of landscape Whittier loved best? And 
what season? What are the geographical limits of the 
region he usually describes? Does he ever go outside 
this region in his writings? What was his longest 
journey, in the flesh? Find out what Mrs. Fields 
means when she says, "As a traveler, too, he is un- 
rivaled, giving us, without leaving his own garden, the 
fine fruit of foreign lands." What does he himself 
mean when he says, — 

" He who wanders widest lifts 
No more of beauty's jealous veil 
Than he who from his doorway sees 
The miracle of flowers and trees." 

Is Whittier's chief pleasure in scenery that which comes 
from the material beauty of it, or is it the symboHsm 
which he finds of things moral and spiritual ? 

What scenes attract him most, — the grand and noble, 
or the quiet and beautiful ? 

NEW ENGLAND LIFE, LEGEND, AND HISTORY. 

'• What Scott and Bums were to Scotland, Whittier teas to New England. 
He touched her life at every point.''' — F. L. Pattbb. 

Indian Legends. 
Pentucket. 

Funeral Tree of the Sokokis. 
The Bridal of Pennacook. 
The Truce of Piscataqua. 
Nauhaught, the Deacon. 
How the Robin came. 
The Fountain. 

Colonial Life. 

Skipper Ireson's Ride. 
* The Swan Song of Parson Avery. 



54 LIFE, LEGEND, AND HISTORY. 

The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall. 
Cobbler Keezar's Vision. 
Amy Wentworth. 
The Countess. 
John Underhill. 
Abraham Davenport. 

Quaker Persecutions. 

The Exiles. 

Cassandra Southwick. 

Barclay of Ury. 

In the " Old South." 

The King's Missive. 

How the Women went from Dover. 

Banished from Massachusetts. 

Witchcraft. 

Mabel Martin. 
The Witch of Wenham. 
The Garrison of Cape Ann. 
The Changeling. 

Later Scenes. 

Among the Hills. 
Telling the Bees. 
The Pumpkin. 
Songs of Labor. 

Dedication. 

The Shoemakers. 

The Fishermen. 

The Lumbermen. 

The Ship-Builders. 

The Drovers. 

The Huskers. 



SNOW-BOUND. 55 

Some one has said that a history of early New Eng- 
land might be compiled from Whittier's works. Is the 
statement a great exaggeration ? ^ How does he com- 
pare in faithfulness and vividness with other poets who 
have sung New England life ? What novelists liave 
best represented early New England? Is Whittier 
essentially a story-teller ? Did he have special training 
in this line in his youth ? (See Snow-Bound.) 

SNOW-BOUND. 

'■'■It is a ivinter idyl, — a picture of an old-fashioned farmer'' s fireside in 
tvinter, — and if it were not mine I should call it pretty good. " — Whittibr. 

" The chief idyl of Neio England.'''' — Charles F. Richardson. 

" The most faithful picture of our northern winter that has yet been put into 
poetry.''^ — John Burroughs. 

Snow-Bound has already been mentioned in the auto- 
biographical poems, and might also properly be included 
in the preceding group, but as our poet's greatest work 
it shall be considered alone. This poem deserves to be 
learned by heart by every New England boy and girl. 
As a work of literary art it has won a place among 
the best idyls of home life ; more than this, it shows us 
Whittier himself as nothing else does, and gives us a 
most faithful and vivid picture of New England farm 
life of a bygone time. 

At what time in the poet's life was Snow-Bound 
written ? Is there any other poem in our literature 
which greatly resembles it ? Make a list of some of 
the most famous poems about snow and snow-storms. 
Do you recall any good snow scenes by the essayists and 
novelists ? Whittier has prefaced his work by a few 

1 In answering this question Margaret Smith's Journal should 
be considered, as well as the poems. 



56 PERSONAL POEMS. 

lines from Emerson. Read Emerson's whole poem, 
" The Snow-Storm," and compare the two descriptions. 
Which is the better picture of the storm itself ? Is the 
greatest charm of Snow-Bound in the outdoor scenes or 
in the life around the hearth ? 

Snow-Bound has been compared to "The Deserted 
Village " and " The Cotter's Saturday Night." What 
are the points of resemblance ? Of difference ? Is 
there any reason to suppose that Whittier may have 
been influenced by either of the poems just mentioned ? 
Which of the three is the greatest poem ? 

PERSONAL POEMS. 

^^ His friends u-ere to Whittier, more than to most men., an unfailing source 
of daily happiness and gratitude.''^ — Annie FiEiDS. 

To Charles Sumner. 

To George B. Cheever. 

Brown of Ossawatomie. 

Bryant on his Birthday. 

Thomas Starr King. 

Garibaldi. 

Sumner. 

Bayard Taylor. 

Our Autocrat. 

In Memory — James T. Fields. 

The Poet and the Children. 

A Welcome to Lowell. 

A Greeting. 

Read on Harriet Beecher Stowe's seven- 
tieth birthday, at a garden party at ex- 
Governor Claflin's in Newtonville, Mass. 

Godspeed. 

To Annie Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett 
embarking upon a voyage. 



POEMS FOR OCCASIONS. 57 

To Oliver Wendell Holmes. 8th mo. 29th, 
1892. 

This was Whittier's last poem, written 

shortly before his death. 
Garrison. 

Not all, but most of the persons named above were 
personal acquaintances of Whittier, and the list might 
be made a long one indeed. Few men of so simple life 
have had a more noble company of friends. Aside from 
home and neighborhood associates, these friends may 
be roughly grouped in two classes, — the anti-slavery 
companions of his early and middle life, and the literary 
people who delighted to honor him in his later years. 
Name some of the most prominent of each class. Who 
among them all most influenced him ? 

POEMS FOR OCCASIONS. 

Hymn for the Opening of Thomas Starr King's House 
of Worship, 1864. 

Hymn for the House of Worship at Georgetown. 

Hymn for the Opening of Plymouth Church, St. Paul, 
Minnesota. 

Lexington, 1775. 

The Library. 

Sung at the opening of the Haverhill Library, 
November 11, 1875. 

Haverhill. 

Read at the celebration of the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the city, July 2, 1890. 

Kenoza Lake. ' 

Read at the opening of the shores of the lake — 
formerly called " Great Pond," — as a public p>»>jit. 



58 ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS. 

A Song of Harvest. 

For an agricultural exhibition at Amesbury and 

Salisbury. 
For an Autumn Festival. 

An English writer, H. R. Haweis, has expressed sur- 
prise that exercises for the opening of fairs, public build- 
ings, etc., have been in this country so often enriched 
by poems of our greatest poets. What do you think 
of the custom ? Is it a dignified one ? Does it bear any 
relation to our systems of government and popular edu- 
cation ? Have our poets generally responded to the 
demand for this kind of work ? Who is our greatest 
writer of " occasional verse " ? Are poems thus " made 
to order " usually up to their author's general standard 
of excellence ? What is Whittier's best effort of this 
kind ? Have any American poets written poems for 
occasions which rank with our very best literature ? 

ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS. 

" I set a higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declara- 
tion of 1833, than on the title-page of any book.'''' — John G. Whittier. 

" He early became one of the most determined contestants in one of the 
sternest combats which the world has witnessed.'''' — Annie Fields. 

To William Lloyd Garrison. 

Read at the convention which formed the American 

Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. 
Toussaint L'Ouverture. 
Expostulation. 
Hymn : Written for the Meeting of the Anti-Slavery 

Society, New York, 1834. 
The Hunters of Men. 
SktiJ-nzas for the Times. 



ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS. 59 

The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother to her Daugh- 
ters. 
Massachusetts to Virginia. 
For Righteousness' Sake. 
Seed-Time and Harvest. 
Moloch in State Street. 
A Word for the Hour. 
" Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. " 
To John C. Fremont. 
At Port Royal. 
The Battle Autumn of 1862. 
Barbara Frietchie. 
Laus Deo ! 

Was Whittier's connection with the anti-slavery move- 
ment a benefit or an injury to him as an author ? Were 
the questions involved in the Civil War a controlling 
factor in the literary work of the time ? Did they turn 
it aside from the true aims of literature, or did they give 
it a greatness which otherwise it would have lacked ? 
What was the greatest book inspired by slavery agita- 
tion? Compare some of the leading writers of those 
days as to the degree in which public questions appear 
in their pages. How may our anti-slavery literature be 
expected to compare in permanence with other forms 
of literary work ? Is war us'ially an inspirer or a de- 
stroyer of literature ? Give facts regarding other litera- 
tures than our own to support your answer. 



60 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

RELIGIOUS POEMS. 

" That God is good sufficeth 7?te.". 

Whittdbk. 
•' A birthright Quaker — one in spirit too, 
Yet catholic beyond the bounds of secty 

William Llotd Garrison. 

The Call of the Christian. 

First-Day Thoughts. 

Overruled. 

The Shadow and the Light. 

My Trust. 

A Christmas Carmen. 

The Minister's Daughter. 

Trust. 

By their Works. 

The Word. 

Requirement. 

The Mystic's Christmas. 

Worship. 

The Eternal Goodness. 

Our Master. 

At Last. 

Was Whittier an orthodox Quaker? Remembering 
that he was both by descent and personal choice a mem- 
ber of the sect which suffered so much from the Puri- 
tans in early times, what do you think of his attitude in 
all matters which recall those strifes and factions ? Is 
his treatment of the Puritans fair .? Do you feel that 
he cares greatly for sectarian distinctions ? Was he 
ever assailed by doubt ? Although he speaks of " the 
same old baffling questions " and " the maddening maze 
of things," do you feel that the calm of his spirit is 



WHITTIEWS PROSE. 61 

seriously disturbed by them ? Even in his intense 
hatred of slavery, did he lose faith in a wise govern- 
ment of the universe ? (See last stanza of For Right- 
eousness' Sake. Is this stanza an expression of habit- 
ual feeling or of a mood ?) Reconstructing his creed 
from his poems, what would its chief articles be ? 

WHITTIER'S PROSE. 

Margaret Smith's Journal in the Province of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, 1678-9. 

Journalistic work, much of which was anti-slavery 
writing. 

Any detailed study of Whittier's prose is beyond the 
scope of these " Outlines," but it may not be passed 
unmentioned, especially as it deserves much more read- 
ing than it receives. 

The only extended work in prose is Margaret Smith's 
Journal, purporting to be written by a young English 
gentlewoman visiting her relatives in the Massachusetts 
Bay Colony. The style was probably suggested to Whit- 
tier by Mrs. Rathbone's " Diary of Lady Willoughby." 
Some critics regard the work as dull and tiresome. 
It is not indeed in the style of our most recent novelists, 
but to any one who cares for the history of New Eng- 
land, for the manners and customs of a bygone cen- 
tury, for the persecutions of Quakers and witches, for 
the intercourse of English and Indians, and the labors 
of Eliot among the red men, it is replete with interest. 
Mr. Horace E. Scudder has called it " one of the best 
mediums for approaching a difficult period of New Eng- 
land history." 

Whittier's anti-slavery prose cannot be neglected by 



62 WHITTIER'S PROSE. 

any student of the great conflict. It is the work of a 
man who gave himself heart and soul to the struggle 
from its beginning to its end. Every one should read 
at least Justice and Expediency. 

Thero is also a considerable mass of miscellaneous 
prose work, tales, sketches, criticism, and letters, less 
important, but containing much of interest. Still it is 
as a poet that Whittier is known, and that he deserves 
to be. Professor Richardson says, "Mr. Whittier's 
pleasant prose has already passed into the shadow." 



OUTLINES FOR A STUDY OF 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



" Who else wears so many crowns as he, — the irresistible humorist and wit ; 
the liberal, bold, profound, and subtle thinker ; the poet, the essayist, the 
novelLst ; the man of science ; the consummate teacher.; the skillful physi- 
cian ; the unselfish patriot ; the honest, faithful, tender friend ? " — Profkssob 
Young. 

" Poet, essayist, novelist, humorist, scientist, ripe scholar, and wise philoso- 
pher. . . . His varied qualities would suffice for the mental furnishing of 
half a dozen literary specialists. " — John G. Whittier. 

" Dr. Holmes bore much the same relation to Boston that Dr. Johiison did 
to London." — C. F. Johnson. 

*' Heis an essential part of Boston, lik" the cner who becomes so identified 
with a court that it seems as if Justice must change her quarters when he is 
gone." — "^ nit who made a jest that his State House was the hub of the solar 
system, and in his heart believed it." — Edmund C. Stbdman. 

Dr. Holmes has been very generally known as the 
"Autocrat," and also, referring to the other books of the 
Breakfast-Table Series, as the " Poet " and the " Pro- 
fessor." He has also been called the " American Mon- 
taigne," and " his own Boswell." 

What significance have the last two appellations ? 

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL WORKS. 
Morse, John T., Jr. 

Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

The authoritative biography, written since Dr. 
Holmes's death, by a nephew of Mrs. Holmes. 



64 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL WORKS. 

Kennedy, William Sloane. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poet, Litterateur, Scientist. 
This work " does not profess to be a biography in 
the strictly technical sense . . • ; but it is designed 
to serve as a treasury of information concerning the 
ancestry, childhood, college life, professional and 
literary career, and social surroundings of him of 
whom it treats, as well as to fuinish a careful criti- 
cal study of his work." 
Jerrold, Walter. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
An English work. Brief. 
Fields, Annie. 

Authors and Friends. 

Dr. Holmes was not only a friend but almost a 
next-door neighbor of the Fields family, and Mrs. 
Fields's work possesses the charm which comes 
from fullness of knowledge. She gives also several 
letters not elsewhere published. 
Richardson, Charles F. 

American Literature. Vol. ii. chapter vi. Poets of 
Freedom and Culture. 
Sanborn, Frank B. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. In Homes and Haunts of 
Our Elder Poets. (Illustrated.) 
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. 
Poets of America. 



EVENTS IN HOLMES'S LIFE. Qo 

POEMS ON HOLMES. 
Whittieb, John G. 
Our Autocrat. 

Read at the breakfast given in honor of Dr. 
Holmes by the publishers of the "Atlantic 
Monthly," December 3, 1879. 
To Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
Lowell, James Russell. 
A Fable for Critics. 

The passage beginning, — 

" There 's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit." 

NOTEWORTHY FACTS AND EVENTS IN HOLMES'S 
LIFE. 

Born 1809 — died 1894. 

Abraham Lincoln. 

Edgar Allan Poe. 

William Ewart Gladstone. 

Alfred Tennyson. 

Charles Darwin. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
Parentage : Of good New England stock on both 
sides. Dr. Holmes's grandfather Holmes served in 
both the French and Indian and the Revolutionary 
wars. His mother was connected with several of the 
best families of New England. The name Wendell 
comes from Dutch ancestors a few generations back.^ 

Home training and influence; That of a scholarly 
minister's family in the college town of Cambridge. 

. ^ Relationship may be traced to Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, the 
first poet of New England, The poetic gift seems to have been 
enrich«d in transmission. 



Born 



same year < 



66 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL READINGS. 

School education : Schools in Camhrldge, Phillips 
Academy at Andover, Harvard College, and study 
abroad. Association in college with many men since 
famous. 

1831. First publication of his writings, in a college 
periodical. 

1836. Beginning of the practice of medicine in Boston, 
and publication of his first volume of verse. 
These beginnings indicate his occupations for 
many years. 

1847-82. Professor at Harvard Medical School. 

1857. Beginning of the " Autocrat " Series in the 
" Atlantic Monthly," to which Dr. Holmes con- 
tinued to be a contributor almost to the end of 
his life. 

1886. Makes a trip to Europe, spending most of the 
time in England, '' where the journey was like 
a Royal Progress." Receives the degree of 
D. C. L. from Oxford, and LL. D. from Edin- 
burgh University. 
What was the significance of all these honors ? 

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL READINGS FROM HOLMES. 

'■'■ A pe,rson speaking outrigJU and not afraid of a large I.' ^ — KotiXCE E. 

SCDDDER. 

A Mortal Antipathy. Introduction. 

The Gambrel-Roofed House and its Outlook. In The 

Poet at the Breakfast-Table. Cliapter i. (near the 

beginning). 
Parson Turell's Legacy. (Opening stanzas.) 
The School-Boy. 

Read at the centennial celebration, Phillips Academy, 

Andover. 



HUMOROUS POEMS. 67 

Our Home — Our Country. 

Dorothy Q. 

A Family Record. 

Old Cambridge. 

Poems of the Class of '29. 

Cinders from the Ashes. In Pages from an Old 

Volume of Life. 
Our Hundred Days in Europe. 

If Holmes had written an avowed Autobiography, 
would he have needed to add much to what he has given 
us here and there in his works ? Is there any other 
author with whom you feel so well acquainted, — so 
much as though you had met him personally ? Does 
this laying bare of his life proceed from egotism, from 
genial frankness, from pride of ancestry, or from a 
combination of these qualities ? Had he been of ignoble 
birth, and frowned upon by fortune, should we still have 
had such outpourings of confidence ? 

HUMOROUS POEMS. 

" The gayest of rhymes is a matter that '* serious.'''' 

" / never dare to write 
As funny as I can.^'' 

Omvbr Wendeix Holmes. 

Evening, by a Tailor. 

The Dorchester Giant. 

The September Gale. 

The Height of the Ridiculous. ^ 

Contentment. 

The Deacon's Masterpiece. 

Aunt Tabitha. 

How the Old Horse won the Bet. 



68 PERSONAL POEMS. 

Is wit or humor Holmes's characteristic quality ? 
How does he rank among American humorists ? Does 
he ever use his power for purposes of sarcasm ? 

PERSONAL POEMS. 
For Whittier's Seventieth Birthday. 
To John Greenleaf Whittier, on his Eightieth Birthday. 
In Memory of John Greenleaf Whittier. 
At a Birthday Festival. — To J. R. Lowell. 
To James Russell Lowell. 

To James Russell Lowell, on his Seventieth Birthday. 
James Russell Lowell. 
To H. W. Longfellow. 
Our Dead Singer. H. W. L. 
Bryant's Seventieth Birthday. 
A Birthday Tribute. To J. F. Clarke. 
To James Freeman Clarke. 
A Farewell to Agassiz. 
Francis Parkman. 
To George Peabody. 
Two Poems to Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
Birthday of Daniel Webster. 

Hymn at the Funeral Services of Charles Sumner. 
For the Services in Memory of Abraham Lincoln. 
To Rutherford Birchard Hayes. 

This list might be greatly extended, and more names 
might have been introduced without making it longer, 
but it has seemed desirable to include several poems to 
Lowell, Whittier, and Longfellow, to show how close 
was the bond which united our most famous New Eng- 
land poets. It will be interesting to trace more fully 
the friendships between the literary men of the genera- 



HARVARD POEMS. 69 

tion just passed away. The Saturday Club, of which 
Hohnes was one of the most brilliant members, should 
not fail of attention, for at its monthly dinners met for 
years most of tlie famous authors and scholars of the 
vicinity of Boston. Is there any club of similar charac- 
ter in Boston in these days ? What was the special bond 
between Holmes and James Freeman Clarke ? The 
poem in memory of James Russell Lowell begins, — 
*' Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir." 
What is the significance of this line ? Is it not pathetic 
to see one man write so many farewells ? Do Dr. 
Holmes's later poems show that the burden of years 
rested heavily upon him ? What was the force of his 
remark regarding The Last Leaf, that he had " lived 
long enough to be an illustration of his own poem " ? 
Did he mean simply that he was a very old man ? 



HARVARD POEMS. 

" Our most typical university poet.'' — ''Alma Mater has occupied a sur- 
prising portion of his range '' —Edmund C. Stedman. 

Poems of the Class of '29. 

It is unnecessary to give the individual titles of this 
wonderful list of forty-four poems which Holmes 
wrote for the reunions of his own class. As is 
well known, the class of '29 is a famous one, other 
members than its poet having risen to high honors. 
In " The Boys," who are referred to as the " Judge," 
the " Reverend," the " boy with the grave mathe- 
matical look," the "boy with a three-decker brain," 
and the " nice youngster of excellent pith " ? 

Other Harvard Poems. 

A Song for the Centennial Celebration of Harvard 
College. 1836. 



70 POEMS FOR OCCASIONS. 

Meeting of the Alumni of Harvard College. 

The Parting Song. 

Hymn for the Laying of the Corner-Stone of Har- 
vard Memorial Hall. 

Hynm for the Dedication of Memorial Hall. 

The Fountain of Youth. 

Vestigia Quinque Retrorsum. 

Two Sonnets : Harvard. 

Harvard. 

Poem for the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniver- 
sary of the Founding of Harvard College. 

Was there ever a man more identified with his college 
than Holmes ? 



POEMS FOR OCCASIONS (OTHER THAN HARVARD 
POEMS). 

" jf^e Dean among our writers oj poems for occasions.''^ — Eduvsd C. 
Stbuman. 

" His desk is crammed full, for he always keeps writing ''em 
And reading to friends as his way of delighting 'cto." 

Oliver Wendbll Holmes. 
"He was king of the dinner-table during a large part of (he century.''^ — 
AjmvE Fields. 

" The muse of most poets refuses to be commanded, but Holmes''s Pegasus 
was ahvays bridled and ready for flight." — F. L. Pattee. 

For the Meeting of the Burns Cluh. 

For the Burns Centennial Celebration. 

At a Meeting of Friends. 

International Ode. 

Hymn for the Fair at Chicago. 

A Hymn of Peace. 

Welcome to the Nations. 

The Iron Gate. 



PATRIOTIC POEMS. 71 

Welcome to the Chicago Commercial Club. 

At the Saturday Club. 

King's Chapel. 

For the Dedication of the New City Library, Boston. 

Professor Richardson has said, " The writer of poems 
of occasion, like the after-dinner orator, must pay a high 
price for immediate applause." What is the signifi- 
cance of this remark ? Do you feel that Holmes lowered 
his rank as a poet by writing so much "occasional 
verse"? (According to a recent writer his works of 
this kind are, by actual count, forty-seven per cent, of 
all his poems.) 

PATRIOTIC POEMS. 

*"• None of our poets wrote more stirring war lyrics.'^ — Chazlzs F. Rich- 

▲BOSOX. 

A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party. 
Old Ironsides. 
Lexington. 
Boston Common. 

Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee Three Things. 
To Canaan. 
One Country. 
God save the Flag ! 
Freedom, Our Queen. 
Under the Washington Elm, Cambridge. 
Army Hymn. 
Union and Liberty. 
A Voice of the Loyal North. 
Voyage of the Good Ship Union. 

For the Commemoration Services, Cambridge, July 21, 
1865. 



72 POEMS OF RELIGION. 

What is the history of " Old Ironsides " ? Was 
Holmes's poem influential in saving the sliip ? What 
period and what phase of our history most interest 
Holmes? What was his attitude in the time of the 
Civil War ? Compare his work and Whittier's of that 
period. Ai'e love of country and regard for human 
brotherhood manifested in equal degree in the two men ? 
If not, how would you distinguish them ? Which of the 
two cares for the Union, and which more for the slave? 
Is Holmes by nature a reformer, or one who clings to 
the existing condition of things ? 

POEMS OF RELIGION AND SENTIMENT. 

" God reigneth. All is well.'''' 

Olivbb Wendell Holmes. 

Hymn for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Reor- 
ganization of the Boston Young Men's Christian 
Union. 

Parting Hymn. 

Hymn after the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Hymn for the Two Hundredth Anniversary of King's 
Chapel. 

Voiceless, The. 

The Last Leaf.* 

The Chambered Nautilus. 

A Sun-Day Hymn. 

Hymn of Trust. 

What are the articles of Holmes's creed ? Is his as 
broad and gentle a spirit as Whittier's ? Will his Sun- 

^ The Last Leaf defies classification, but to ^oup it with humor- 
ous poems, as is sometimes done, seems an indignity, while the 
delicate pathos of this picture of old age entitles it fairly enough 
to be named among poems of sentiment 



HOLMES'S PROSE. 73 

Day Hymn and Hymn of Trust take their places among 
the famous hymns of the ages ? 



HOLMES'S PROSE. 
Medicai, Works. 

The Breakfast-Table Series. 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. 
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. 
The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. 

Novels. 
Elsie Venner. 
The Guardian Angel. 
A Mortal Antipathy. 

Biographies. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
John Lothrop Motley. 
Our Hundred Days in Europe. 
Over the Teacups. 

No study of Holmes, however brief, can omit his 
prose works, for in them, even more than in his poetry, 
we come to know the man. Never did an author pro- 
ject himself into his works more perfectly than Holmes 
in the Breakfast-Table Series. Reading these books we 
almost forget that we did not have the honor of his inti- 
mate personal acquaintance. We feel that we have 
been admitted into the penetralia of his mind and heart. 
He says himself , " In these books I have unburdened 
myself of what I was born to say." Accepting this we 



74 HOLMES'S PROSE. 

are not surprised to find his other prose somewhat less 
delightful. His medical works were, however, distinct 
contributions to the advance of medical science in their 
day, and his two biographies are very satisfactory. 
His novels do not rank with the great works of their 
kind, although some one has said that The Guardian 
Angel " falls just short of being a great novel." Mr. 
Stedman calls them " curious examples of what a clever 
observer can do by way of fiction in the afternoon 
of life." But we feel that however clever the work 
may be, the novel was not Holmes's natural channel of 
expression. 

Our Hundred Days in Europe and Over the Tea- 
cups were written when the shadows of age were fjast 
falling, and lack the vigor of the earlier works. 



OUTLINES FOR A STUDY OF 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



"^ character which eomUned th^ unflinching earnestness of the Puritan 
roUh the mellowness of a ^lan of the great world.^^-no^ciL E. Scudder. 

Lowell has been called 

The Songster of Elmwood. 

Our new Theocritus. 

Hosea Biglow. 
What is the significance of each appellation ? 

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL WORKS. 

Underwood, Francis H. 

James Russell Lowell. A Biographical Sketch. 
A fairly good, but not recent work. 
Curtis, George William. 

James Russell Lowell. 

A memorial address delivered before the Brooklyn 
Institute, February 22, 1892. The founder of this 
Institute provided for an annual address upon the 
character of George Washington, " or of some other 
benefactor of America." It had been hoped that 
Mr. Lowell would give the address in 1892, and 
after his death it was decided that the meeting 
should be a memorial of him. Mr. Curtis's address 
is delightful and valuable. 



76 POEMS ON LOWELL. 

Norton, Charles Eliot, editor. 

Letters of James Russell Lowell. 2 vols. 

These letters give, of course, much autobiographical 
matter. 
Sanborn, Frank B. 

James Russell Lowell. In Homes and Haunts of Our 
Elder Poets. (Illustrated.) 
Richardson, Charles F. 

American Literature. Vol. ii. chapter vi. Poets of 
Freedom and Culture. 
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. 
Poets of America. 

The authoritative and final biography of Lowell is yet 
to be written. The Letters, edited by Professor Norton, 
give perhaps the best picture of the man obtainable at 
present. 

POEMS ON LOWELL. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf. 

A Welcome to Lowell. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. 

Farewell to J. R. Lowell. 

At a Birth-Day Festival : to J. R. Lowell. 

To James Russell Lowell. 

James Russell Lowell. 



EVENTS IN LOWELL'S LIFE. 77 

NOTEWORTHY FACTS AND EVENTS IN LOWELL'S 
LIFE. 

Born 1819 — died 1891. 

William Wetmore Story. 
Edwin Percy Whipple. 
^>Walt Whitman. 

Josiah Gilbert Holland. 
Julia Ward Howe. 
>John Ruskin. 
► Charles Kingsley. 
>George Eliot. 



Born same year 



Parentage : Of the best. His father a member of the 
famous Lowell family, who have given their name to the 
city of Lowell and the Lowell Institute. His mother, 
of Scotch descent, a woman of imaginative and poetic 
temperament. 

Home training and influence : As in the case of 
Holmes, that of a scholarly minister's family, in the 
college town of Cambridge. 

School education : Cambridge schools and Harvard 
College. 

Studies law, but with little expectation of practicing 
it, his bent being strongly toward literature. 

1841. Publishes his first volume of poems, A Year's 
Life. From this time on he devotes himself 
to literary work of various kinds. 

1844. Marries Maria White. 

1855. Is chosen to succeed Longfellow in the chair of 
modern languages at Harvard. 

1857-61. Editor of the "Atlantic Monthly." 



78 POEMS OF NATURE. 

1863-72. Joint-editor, with Charles Eliot Norton, of the 
" North American Review." 

1877-80. American minister to Spain. 

1880-85. American minister to England. Elmwood, 
the place of his birth, was his home through all 
his life, and there he died at the age of seventy- 
two. 



AUTOBiaGRAPHICAL READINGS FROM LOWELL. 

Cambridge Thirty Years Ago. In Fireside Travels. 

Also in vol. i. of the Riverside Edition of Lowell's 

Works. 
To Charles Eliot Norton. The dedication of Under 

the Willows. 
The First Snowfall. 
After the Burial. 

Lowell is not so frankly autobiographic as some of his 
brother poets, but much may be found in his work, in 
addition to what is noted above, which gives us hints of 
his outward as well as of his inward life. 

POEMS OF NATURE. 

Summer Storm. ' 

An Indian-Summer Reverie. 

The Birch-Tree. 

To the Dandelion. 

Under the Willows. 

Al Fresco. 

The First Snow-Fall. 

Pictures from Appledore. 

The Nest. 



LEGENDS. 79 

The Maple. 

The Fountain. 

The Vision of Sir Lauufal. Preludes. 

Is Lowell a good landscape painter ? What kinds of 
scenes does he love ? Does he go far afield for striking 
pictures, or does he describe the near and the every-day ? 
What is his favorite month ? Can he give equally good 
pictures of summer and winter ? 

LEGENDS. 

"(So, pine-like, Ihe legend grew."' 

James Russell Lowell 

The Growth of the Legend. 
A Chippewa Legend. 
The Shepherd of King Admetus. 
An Incident of the Fire at Hamburg. 
The Singing Leaves. 
Dara. 

The Finding of tJie L\ re. 
Mahmood the Image- Breaker. 
Invita Minerva. 
^The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

There can be no doubt as to which is the chief of 
the above legends. The Vision of Sir Launfal hokis 
much the same relation to Lowell's other work that 
'' Snow-Bound " does to Whittier's, and " Evangeline " 
to Longfellow's. It appealsmost strona|jj_to„tU«- i^iii--- 
versa! heart. What is the story of the Holy Grail ? 
Has it been a favorite subject in modern literature .^ 
Compare Lowell's treatment of it with Telmyson's. 
Som^ one has said that the Vision is " really a land- 



80 PERSONAL POEMS. 

scape poem." Perfect as the landscapes are, do they 
seem to you to give the chief interest to the work ? 
"Which is the better picture, the "day in June" or the 
winter landscape ? Where did Lowell iind his *' little 
brook " ? (See introductory note to the poem in the 
Cambridge Edition.) Is Lowell a natural story-teller ? 
Compare him with Whittier in this respect. 

PERSONAL POEMS. 

" Friendships huUlfirm "> gainst flood and ivind." 

Jauks Russkll Lowbll. 

To M. W., on her Birthday. 

Wendell Phillips. 

To W. L. Garrison. 

To H. W. L., on his Birthday. 

Agassiz. 

To Holmes, on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. 

To Whittier, on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. 

On Board the '76. Written for Mr. Bryant's Seventieth 

Birthday. 
On a Bust of General Grant. ^ 
Letter from Boston. 

Who was M. W. ? Can you find other poems to her ? 
Explain the allusions in the Letter from Boston. Was 
friendship an important element in Lowell's life ? 

^ This poem is the last, so far as is known, written by Mr. 
Lowell, and was not entirely finished. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 81 

PATRIOTIC POEMS. 

" First and/orem ost, Low elljstlie Ameri can poet o f patriotism.'''' — Arthuh 
B. S1MOND8. 

" It xvas soon dear that the young poet whose early verses sang only his own 
happiness would yet fulfill Schiller's requirement that the poet shall be a 
citizen of his age as well as of his country." ~ Gboroe "William Cubtis. 

Stanzas on Freedom. 

The Present Crisis. 

On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Wasliington. 

Freedom. 

The Washers of the Shroud. 

Memoriae Positum. 

Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration. 

Ode read at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the 

Fight at Concord Bridge. 
Under the Old Elm. 
An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876. 

THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

*' Suddenly . . . the absorbing struggle of freedom and slavery for control 
of the Union was illuminated by a humor radiant and piercing, which broke 
over it like daylight, and exposed relentlessly the sophistry and shame of tJie 
slave power. . . . 

" The Biglow Papers were essentially and purely American. . . . They 
could have been written nowhere else but in Yankee New England by a New 
England yan&ee. " —Geoegb William Curtis. 

" / am glad to see ' Hosea Biglow ' in book form. It w a grand book — the 
best of its kind for the last half century or more. It has wit enough to make 
the reputation of a dozen English satirists.'" — J oma G. Whittier. 

There can be no doubt that the Biglow Papers had, 
at the time they were written, a value which depended 
little on literary merit of the kind which insures perma- 
nency and universal recognition. The keen insight, the 
.?irdor^f or truth and national honor, the scorn for politi- 
cal cowardice which these papers showed, struck home 



82 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 

to the heart of every true citizen. But for some of us in 
these days, it must be admitted, they are hard reading, 
especially on account of the grotesque form and the ex- 
aggerated Yankee dialect. Mr. Lowell himself says of 
Hosea : " I am sorry that I began by making him such 
a detestable speller. There is no fun in bad spelling 
itself, but only where the misspelling suggests something 
else wliich is droll per .se." 

Following Lowell's utterance on public questions in 
his various patriotic writings, what type of citizen and 
of patriot do you find him to be ? Compare him with 
Whittier and with Holmes. Is either of them as much 
of a statesman as he? What was The Present Crisis? 
(The date of the poem, 1844, will unlock the history 
referred to.) Study Lowell's course in regard to the 
Mexican war. Does he see slavery most vividly from 
the standpoint of the slave who suffers from it, or the 
statesman who sees his country disgraced by it ? Did 
Lowell suffer personal losses in the War of the Rebel- 
lion ? (See Biglow Papers, 2d Series, No. X. Also 
Memoriae Positum.) What were the circumstances of 
the delivery of the Commemoration Ode ? Has Ameri- 
can patriotism found any higlier expression than in this 
poem ? Note Lowell's estimate of Lincoln in this ode. 
(See also his prose essay on Lincoln.) How do Lowell's 
national odes compare with the other occasional poetry 
of our literature ? George William Curtis has said of 
Lowell, " Literature was his pursuit, but patriotism 
was his passion." Is not that a happy expression of the 
ardor which animates all his patriotic verse ? 

It will be both interesting and useful to study his 
career as an American minister abroad. Was America 
ever more honorably represented ? 



LO WELDS PROSE. 83 

POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND RELIGION. 

" The moral element is the central one in Lowell.''^ — Abthur B. Simonds. 

My Love, 

The Beggar. 

Love. 

Sonnets. IV., VL, XL, XXL 

The Search. 

Extreme Unction. 

Longing. 

A Parable. 

Said Christ our Lord, I will go and see. 

New Year's Eve, 1850. 

After the Burial. 

An Ember Picture. 

A Christmas Carol. 

Is Lowell's faith as simple and unquestioning as 
Whittier's ? Is it any less sincere ? What are the 
salient qualities of his moral nature ? 

LOWELL'S PROSE. 

Lowell's power was more equally divided between his 
prose and his verse than that of any other of our authors. 
The very extent and importance of his prose forbids 
special study of it in these Outlines. His critical works 
are^erhaps the best in American literature. His out- 
door sketches, notably My Garden Acquaintance, and 
A Good Word for Winter, are unsurpassed in their 
way, and his political addresses are among the noblest 
expressions of the American idea. \ George William 
Curtis says of his address on Democracy, given at 



84 LOWELUS PROSE. 

Birmingham, England, while he was our minister at the 
Court of St. James : It " was not only an event, but 
an event without a precedent. . . . No American orator 
has made so clear and comprehensive a declaration of 
the essential American principle, or so simple a state- 
ment of its ethical character." 

It is to be hoped tliaU every reader of Lowell's poetry 
will also study his prose ; but such study will not, so much 
as in the case of Holmes, modify the opinion which 
would be formed from his poetical works alone. 



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